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Concept
Systems programming
Summary
Systems programming, or system programming, is the activity of programming computer system software. The primary distinguishing characteristic of systems programming when compared to application programming is that application programming aims to produce software which provides services to the user directly (e.g. word processor), whereas systems programming aims to produce software and software platforms which provide services to other software, are performance constrained, or both (e.g. operating systems, computational science applications, game engines, industrial automation, and software as a service applications).
Systems programming requires a great degree of hardware awareness. Its goal is to achieve efficient use of available resources, either because the software itself is performance critical or because even small efficiency improvements directly transform into significant savings of time or money.
The following attributes characterize systems programming:
The programmer can make assumptions about the hardware and other properties of the system that the program runs on, and will often exploit those properties, for example by using an algorithm that is known to be efficient when used with specific hardware.
Usually a low-level programming language or programming language dialect is used so that:
Programs can operate in resource-constrained environments
Programs can be efficient with little runtime overhead, possibly having either a small runtime library or none at all
Programs may use direct and "raw" control over memory access and control flow
The programmer may write parts of the program directly in assembly language
Often systems programs cannot be run in a debugger. Running the program in a simulated environment can sometimes be used to reduce this problem.
Systems programming is sufficiently different from application programming that programmers tend to specialize in one or the other.
In systems programming, often limited programming facilities are available.
Official source
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