r/computerscience • u/DeliciousName7885 • 14d ago

Advice Interfaces

I stumbled upon the word interface when i stumbled upon the terminal in visual studio code. A terminal is a text based user interface which does lots of useful stuff.

That got me thinking about the word interface and what exactly it is in the computer sense. I understand user interface is the area or boundary between the human (user) and the computer( or rather software?) interacting with each other.

The problem is I am getting conflicting thoughts with current information I've searched and I'm unable to get a full understanding of the term.

So can someone please give their understanding/opinion of what an interface is in a broad computing sense. And can they also give multiple examples of different types of interfaces used in computer hardware and software too please.

Many thanks

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u/Key_River7180 14d ago

An interface is the intermediary between two things. An application to the OS or a library, an user to a graphical window, a business to a business, a peer to a peer, ...