A driver is like a middleman between your computer’s software (like applications or the operating system) and a specific piece of hardware or special software.
Special Knowledge:
Drivers have special knowledge about how a device or software works, and this knowledge is something that regular programs don’t have.
Packaging as DLL:
In personal computers, drivers are often packaged neatly as Dynamic Link Library (DLL) files.
Programming Interface:
Think of a driver as a guide that provides a way for other programs to talk to and manage a particular type of hardware or low-level service.
Device Drivers:
If the driver is dealing with physical or virtual hardware devices, it’s called a device driver.
Abstraction and Translation:
The main job of a device driver is to act like a translator. It helps applications or the operating system talk to the hardware without needing to know all the nitty-gritty details.
Example:
Imagine you have an application that needs to send and receive data through a serial port. The application only has simple functions like “send data” and “receive data”. The driver comes in to handle the complex communication with the specific serial port controller on your computer. This way, the application doesn’t need to worry about the details, making it easier for programmers to write software that works with different types of hardware.
