Towards An Ontology Of Software: A Requirements Engineering Perspective / quote 12 of 28
A program is constituted by code
Since code and program differ in their essential properties (programs are necessari- ly artifacts and possess essential proper functions; codes are not necessarily artifacts), we have to conclude that a program is not identical to a code. However, if program and code are different entities, what is the relation between the two? In general, the relation between an artifact and its material substrata is taken to be one of constitution. As not- ed in [20], the basic idea of constitution is that whenever a certain aggregate of things of a given kind is in certain circumstances, a new entity of a different kind comes into being.