computer science

Software House

Software House is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Software House rather than just read about it. In short: A Software house is a company whose primary business is designing, developing, and maintaining custom software applications, i.e., software development. The first software house, the Computer Usage Company (CUC), was founded in March 1955 in New York.

Key takeaways

Software House belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Software House to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Software House from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

A Software house is a company whose primary business is designing, developing, and maintaining custom software applications, i.e., software development. The first software house, the Computer Usage Company (CUC), was founded in March 1955 in New York. The UK's first software house, Vaughan Programming Services, was founded by Dina St Johnston in 1959. Based on SIC codes there are approximately 16,000 software houses in the US and 28,000 in the UK (the US companies tend to be larger). The majority of the employees are programmers.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Software House

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Software House claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Software House before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Software House ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Software House

In research: Software House appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Software House in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Software House is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Digital labor, Information technology, Software industry, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Software House outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Software House in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Software House means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Software House out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Software House in simple terms?

Why does Software House matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Software House?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Software House.