i have a deep and irrational hatred for the fact that some people call computer programs “apps” now of days
And it’s really not that unreasonable. What the user thinks of as an app could be more than 1 program. It makes sense to put an abstraction between users and programs because lots of sophisticated software use separate programs that the end user doesn’t care about, just the whole.
An application program is a computer program designed to carry out a specific task
A howitzer is a projectile weapon designed to fire a specific projectile
Rejoice, your paint guns are now all howitzers!
Thankfully the dictionaries get a little more specific. I do want an artillery capable paint gun though, that sounds rad
The Task Manager in Windows always had an “Applications” tab and a “Processes” tab, going back to Windows 98 at least. “Programs” was always too broad and restricted to being colloquial; the specific word was either application or executable.
What’s worth ranting about is whether people have stopped understanding “App” as short for something.
The l33t w4r3z d00dz were calling applications ‘appz’ since at least the '90s. Then there was that brief period where Apple tried to claim “app store” was short for “apple store” so no one else could say it…
