Re: Digest Number 374

[pycyn@aol.com]

<<but viruses are still hardware, whereas computer viruses are software.>>
Talk about your metaphors!  I suppose it would be hard to argue that computer 
viruses are not literally software, but it is surely the case that viruses 
are not exactly hardware (nor, for that matter, is any part of a living 
system) nor software neither. So, viruses are hardware in the sense that they 
are material objects, spatially locatable, and so on.  But they are software 
in the sense of being introduced into a piece of "hardware" to get it to 
perform a certain function; they are basically code (as noted) with some 
carrier facility -- a plug-in at best, as hardware; even the carrier facility 
is largely a code for cracking a variety of security systems.  On the whole, 
I think the software analogy (which could be extended for quite a while, 
while the hardware one is about run out) is a fruitful one, in the way the 
hardware one is not.  Of course, as a metaphor, it is also ultimately false.  
But the revelation may have doen its work before that little problem arises 
(wish the same could be said for the metaphors about, say, God).
pc