What are the differences between a program and an application

Question

What are the differences between a program and an application    I am trying to understand this to form a concept in ontology  Can anyone explain

User · Answer

i guess you mean System Programs and Application programs

System Programs makes the hardware run , Applications are for specific tasks

an Example for System Programs are Device Drivers

as for the Applications you can say web browsers , word porcessros etc

User · Answer

When I studied IT in college my prof  made it simple for me    A computer  program  and an  application   a k a   app   are one-in-the-same  The only difference is a technical one  While both are the same  an  application  is a computer program launched and dependent upon an operating system to execute    Got it right on the exam   So when you click on a word processor  for example  it is an application  as is that hidden file that runs the printer spooler launched only by the OS  The two programs depend on the OS  whereby the OS itself or your internal BIOS programming are not  apps  in the technical sense as they communicate directly with the computer hardware itself   Unless the definition has changed in the past few years  commercial entities like Microsoft and Apple are not using the terms properly  preferring sexy marketing by making the term  apps  seem like something popular market and  new   because a  computer program  sounds too  nerdy

User · Answer

My understanding is this    A computer program is a set of instructions that can be executed on a computer  An application is software that directly helps a user perform tasks    The two intersect  but are not synonymous  A program with a user-interface is an application  but many programs are not applications

User · Answer

I use the term program to include applications  apps   utilities and even operating systems like windows  linux and mac OS  We kinda need an overall term for all the different terms available  It might be wrong but works for me

User · Answer

Without more information about the question  the terms  program  and  application  are nearly synonymous    As Saif has indicated   application  tends to be used more for non-system related programs  That being said  I don t think it s wrong to describe the operating system as an special application that provides an environment in which to run other applications

User · Answer

A  program  can be as simple as a  set of instructions  to implement a logic    It can be part of an  application    component    service  or another  program    Application is a possibly a collection of coordinating program instances to solve a user s purpose

[computer-science] What are the differences between a program and an application?

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