Towards An Ontology Of Software: A Requirements Engineering Perspective / quote 10 of 28
A program as an abstract artifact
Consider now a program, constituted by a certain code. Let us observe first that this is not a physical object, as it lacks a location in space. So, in pace with Irmak, we take a program to be a particular kind of abstract artifact. On one hand, it behaves like a type (or universal) since it defines patterns that are repeatable in a number of copies. On the other hand, unlike a type, a program is not outside space and time. A program does not exist eternally like other abstract entities such as numbers and set; in particular, a program does not pre-date its creator. As previously mentioned, it is in fact historical- ly dependent on an intentional “act of baptism” and, hence, on its creator. In addition to such historical dependence, we shall assume that a program constantly depends on some substratum in order to exist, in the sense that at least a physical encoding (a copy) of its code needs to exist.