Software Terminology

I hate the term. It waters down true programmers and hard work. 9 year old rips off someone and makes game, "app". Actual software dev makes useful program using hard work and their own assets, "app".

What's the difference between an application and a program?
- The original Macintosh had an Applications folder. App is what I use to cut through tech speak for people at work because the shortcut is less daunting. They have apps on their phone. They must not be scary like Programs and Applications.
- Historically, an app is something with very limited uses, and a program is more powerful.
  Adobe PhotoShop is a program. Apple Photos is an app.
  
  I'd say it gets a little different with command line utilities --- maybe "utility" is the appropriate term here, but I'd call something like grep a program, not an application (again --- "utility" also works).
  To be sure, grep is extremely powerful, but its scope is limited.

I powered on my computer, my app started, which started my main app, which started my essential apps, which started my app that I use to open my other app, which I use to go to my other app that I use to watch other apps being used by otgher people.
You will get an invisible candy if you can correctly decode this.
- I'll bite: I powered on my computer. My bios started which started my init process, which started my daemons, which started my login manager (maybe slim), which started my DE (maybe gnome), which I use to go to my browser in order to watch other people stream video games.
  I'm dicey on what the browser is being used for - maybe security software? - but I feel like it's plausible.

The meme is good and all, but seeing it makes me feel irrationally annoyed because the first place I saw it was a rascist pleroma (fediverse software; mastodon but rasict) instance that had it embedded in the frontend. This just reminds me of it.

It's worse if you have ever worked in food service. "App" is short for "appetizer".
::cries in very specific form of confusion::

Double plus good!

I miss when game had content patches instead of dlc

They trying the Algorithm to AI nowdays.

Yes but imo patch is now update
- Patch is now Paid DLC

I also hate the way "algorithm" has taken over the public consciousness. You can find people unironically saying "I don't want any algorithm in my social media feed", which is a nonsensical statement.
- If you walk with algorithm, you won't attract the worm.
  
  Holy shit, I just realized that's a dune reference.
- I think it's the same concept as when people say that they don't want any chemicals in their food. You know what they mean, but in a technical sense the statement is nonsensical.
  
  Something, something, dihydrogen monoxide, something.
  
  Yeah, I don't like that one, either.
- People are onto something though - there's been a noticeable shift from social media just showing you your feed in a chronological manner to it showing you personally tailored content that shuffles on each refresh and aims to hook you into endless doomscrolling. I understand perfectly well what's an algorithm, but good luck explaining to people that it's not that specific thing.
  
  Some people actively desire this kind of algorithm because they find it easier to find content they like this way. I'm not sure if they are immune to doomscrolling and actually have gotten it to work in a way that serves them and doesn't involve doomscrolling, or if they are doomscrolling and okay with it. But for me, I really wish I could go back to the chronological feed era.
  
  Other day me and my mom was talking about how TV has all shifted to be nothing but reality TV... and then she said even youtube is becoming the same way... im like uh... thats because thats because you are watching it thus it is giving you more...
- So what should we call the thing that we don't want in our social media feeds that controls what we see?
  
  Manipulation
  
  Engagement based personalized recommendations.
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recommender_system
  
  Jazz hands.
  
  An algorhythm
- Let's not tell them that by definition both a shopping list and a recipe are algorithms.
  
  Isn't a shopping list more like a data structure? A recipe would be an algorithm. I don't know, I could be wrong.
  
  Can you put some milk on the algorithm please?
- Seems like a pretty reasonable semantic shift to me.
- Depends how broad your definition of algorithm is. Is sort by upvotes an algorithm? I say no but sort by hot is.
  So it is possible by this definition to have a feed without any algorithm.
  
  Is sort by upvotes an algorithm?
  Any sorting at all can only happen through one of the following:
  luck
  magic
  divine intervention
  an algorithm
  
  This is (theoretically) a programmer forum. I use the programmer definition. By that definition, not having an algorithm is nonsense.
  
  So garbage in garbage out.
- Dont' worry, the kids will learn about real algorythms when they grow up

What I hate even more, is that the morons who can't read more than two syllables decided to shorten "application" to "app", but now I only ever hear people reading that as "ay pee pee"! What was the fucking point?
- I've literally never heard anyone call it A.P.P. (and I mean that literally literally, not figuratively literally)
  Is this a specific cultural thing? A generational thing? Geography based slang? Why would anyone do this.
  
  I might be biased from speaking with so many Chinese people. Who I can forgive not knowing the origin of the abbreviation. Still pisses me off to no end D:<
  
  It's an idiot thing is what it is
- This, 100% It's like how people started saying "PC" because personal computer was too long for them, but now I exclusively hear people taking up to a minute on each letter! (peeeeeeee-seeeeeeee)
- Chinese phonology doesn't allow for the pronunciation of "app", for example. I see a lot of Chinese people spelling it as "APP", and pronouncing it accordingly. It's kinda funny to me, since the Mandarin word "yingyong" is only two syllables. "APP" just seems more cumbersome by all account, yet it has become inexplicably popular.
  
  Yingyong sounds cool. It's got yoyo vibes
- I mean, I'm pretty sure this is extremely widespread in China, so I'd say it's more cultural than anything else. In fact, since there are so many Chinese, that probably means more people call it A.P.P. than app. But I honestly have no clue, and it doesn't matter to me either way. Words change. It's nothing to get bent out of shape about.

Then: Books, Movies, Videos, Blogs, Articles Now: C O N T E N T
- Man, I hate the word content.
  
  I’m content with it
  
  Product is a word I hate.
  I have a warehouse full of product.
  I mean unless you're a drug smuggler... Then that's fine. But using it for random lawn mower parts is dumb I think.
  
  Me too. Ever since I read Richard Stallman's words to avoid article. I kinda wish I hadn't read it now lmao.
  
  Yarr! Content!
  
  Yeah, me too. What the fuck is content? Content means contained in something. Contained in what?
  Also, "content creator" = OnlyFans
- It’s not the word, it’s the reductionism.
  We used to call all those media except people naturally didn’t want to lump them all together.
- Then: Fire, Rocks

The script is compiled to a program which is then executed by the OS.
->
The app is appified to an app which is then apped by the app.
Damnit.
- Why use many word?

I call everything a script. Makes the Java devs real mad. Makes the PM's super confused.
- A million-line project spread over a hundred files
  It's a script!
  
  sqlite is technically just one C source file, so that's definitely a script.
  
  GNU Autotools: yes.
  
  They hate to hear it.
  
  In a sense it is, before it gets compiled. And yes I'm using the term loosely, please don't @ me people

See also the client camera movement guide:
- This is ridiculous. There's no way a client calls a dolly a "pan".
  That's obviously zooming.
  
  I'll have one zoom sideways to the left, please!
  
  I met a guy who would say "pan forward" and "pan it in an angle".
  
  We will zoom out towards the top
- A Pan-o-rama
- Interesting.
  The word 'pan', came to me from using 3D CAD software and I considered the Jib and Truck actions as 'pan' and the original Pan would be camera rotation, which might be 'turn' (didn't use it as much so don't remember) which was less favourable than using 'orbit'.
  Good to know the word origin.
  Oh and btw, Dolly would not be zoom, but 'walk'.
- Client cameras love everyone!

I fought hard against that for years. I still only use 'app' for phone programs, but I stopped correcting people every time they used the term for anything else. It isn't technically wrong, but it grates on my nerves for some reason.
- If someone told me to use the fdisk app I'd be confused.
  
  Use the ls app.
  Then use the cd app.
- Windows is the first thing I can think of that used the word "application" in that way, I think even back before Windows could be considered an OS (and had a dependency on MS-DOS). Back then, the Windows API referred to the Application Programming Interface.
  Here's a Windows 3.1 programming guide from 1992 that freely refers to programs as applications:
  Common dialog boxes make it easier for you to develop applications for the Microsoft Windows operating system. A common dialog box is a dialog box that an application displays by calling a single function rather than by creating a dialog box procedure and a resource file containing a dialog box template.
  
  Goddamn …. That is a thing of horrific beauty. I saved it immediately.
  (I’m a technical writer so it should be fun to go through this ancient tome)
  
  I don't have a single problem with the word "application"
  
  to develop applications for the Microsoft Windows operating system.
  Could they have meat "uses for the MS..."?
- Language evolves. Why is a computer program not an “app(lication)” exactly?
  
  Oh, it is. It is... Sigh.
  
  It isn’t technically wrong
  
  A lot of times, the literal definition varies from what people think of when they hear a thing. We call a lot of similar things words that don't fully make sense but since other people will know what it means, it's useful. When everything is an app, piles of specifics are glossed over. That probably doesn't matter when talking to a non-developer, but sometimes it might. Those of us in software like the specificity because it tells us many things we might otherwise have to ask several questions to learn about. So yeah, sometimes it matters, other times it won't.
  
  Everyone that goes " thats fire yo!" I spritz with a spraybottle.

In the Netherlands basically everyone uses whatsapp. In the beginning people would say send me a whatsapp or something like that. But pretty quickly people started to shorten it to just app. So people will say stuff like I just got an app (instead of message), it drives me nuts. Like my family chat group is called "app group".
- In Italy people loves start up companies because they think they all make apps. And they write is as "Start apps"
  
  Lmaoo, Italian here too, I never had the pleasure to see that slip up, where have you seen it on usually?
  
  That's funny, especially since no one wants a new app on their phone. Right?
- Are you sure it’s not appje?
  
  Yes but I felt adding the "je" part would make it more confusing for non Dutch readers.

On the flipside, "Bot" is the backend for almost everything that I've dealt with recently.
"We need the data moved from X to Y, can someone make a bot for that?"
Internal suffering
"... Yes. We can setup an API between X and Y."
"Great! We also want a bot to generate daily reports from Y"
Suffering intensifies
"... Ok."
I don't even try to fight it anymore.
- I had a (non-technical) manager come to me one day and say he wanted us to start using this hot new technology he had just read about called an API. This was in 2010. He showed me the article, which somehow never even attempted to explain what an API actually was. I just laughed and said I would make it an action item.
  
  APIs have been around since like the 90s, right?
- Um excuse me the preferred term is "AI agent" if you want outside investment
- You folks still say bot? I my company, we say AI.
- In similar cases I've passive-aggressively intentionally misunderstood and/or acted confused. E.g. "Yes, we can set ut up an API between X and Y, but what exactly do you want the bot to do?" Then let them elaborate until it's clear they're not asking for a bot.
- Wait until they call it an agent

Everything is a file
- What about a process? File gone wild?
  
  I’d call that a file loaded to memory
  
  Why not? Represented in /proc? exec() and fam? Read and write to it?
- I mean, with virtualization that's pretty much true
- What about a folder?
  
  Pregonte file
  
  If you can open it in Vim, it's a file.
- Files are just streams. Everything is just a stream, in real life too.

The other day I realized they did that because its APPle. I have no evidence but I'm sticking with it
- I think I heard "applet" being mentioned for embedded java or something in the early 2000s. I don't know if that's connected.
  
  Apple didn't invent the word "app," but I do think they pushed it because it was adjacent to the company's name.
  
  I thought applet came first. Then "web apps" - but i think that's a windows perspective.
  This claims they came from NEXT which apple bought in the 90s. https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/when-did-programs-become-apps.136416/
  The thread also refers to bitmap image files as bumps which I'd still do if I ever saw a bump again. So the thread is legitimate.
- The name of the company is all you need as evidence.

The word app has been around forever, first appearing in the 1970s (according to some dictionaries I just googled). Pendulum swung towards “programs” and we have since swung back to the correct term.

And now the kids don't know what a file path is anymore. Legit my wife is a professor, and she gets adeer in the headlight look when she is helping students debug code and she mentions a file path not being right in there code.
Serious response, no joke... what's a file path?
These are sophomores and Juniors in college.
- the blank stares you get when mentioning the word "directory"
- These are sophomores and Juniors in college.
  ... Who grew up in a world where computer internals were abstracted away so you never needed to know what a file was or even that they exist. I wouldn't know what a file was either if I didn't grow up in exactly the right time frame and have a dad who hoarded DOS PCs.
  
  Oh no, I get why they don't know what one is. It just makes teaching coding to them very difficult.
  
  I lucked out having a dad who's into computers so I had the chance to tinker with his old stuff since I was a little bwoah.
- Must not.. Must resist.... THEEEIIIIRRRR
  Whew
  
  I think they meant "a file path not being right in that there code".
- Meh every generation has its quirks. My college class in 2000 spent 1 whole week going over the Windows Start menu...
  
  All the education invalidated by the release of Windows 8
- Yikes. Blame iPhone (and Android) hiding file structure in most every app

A long time ago I joined a new remote-first company and in my first month they made an event where they brought in all employees from all over the world for a week at a farm hotel for a mix or meetings and leisure activities.
In one specific meeting the CEO was talking app this app that and I was very confused. The product was a server side program that had a web client, an electron app and two native mobile apps. But the CEO was talking about things that didn't make sense for those apps.
At some point I interrupted the meeting and asked for clarification: what are you talking about when you say app? It's not the mobile apps?
The CEO made a funny face and mentioned an engineer. I looked at him and he had a smug face and said something along the lines of "well, go on, explain it". CEO then explained he was talking about the new big project, which was basically an extension system for the server product - and the extensions would be called apps.
That night I found that engineer at the hotel bar and asked more details about it. Turns out he was the team lead on this project and he hated the term "apps" for it and had been very vocal about it before, saying among other things that it would cause confusion with the client apps we have. Most of the company agreed with him at the time but the CEO demanded it be named apps anyway.
These days everyone there thinks that naming it apps was the right call, but I always hated having to refer to them as "server extension app" to avoid any confusion, specially because I often worked on integrations with third party tools and those tools also had their own stuff called apps so instead of just saying something like "the Kabum extension" I had to say "the ChaChin server Kabum app" (as in this example's context there would also be multiple Kabum clients and ChaChin clients that would all be known as apps too)
- I would have recommended an extension to interface with a mobile browser extension.
  The Mobile Extension App Extension App.

Web browser? "app". Web page? "app". Dialog box? "app". Phone app that's just a thin shell for the web site? "appapp".
- Appetizer at Applebee's? "app"
  This one probably drives me the most crazy.

I hate that this meme never explains what application meant 'back then'
I get that it's a problem now, but if it had a clear enough definition back then, maybe this couldn't have occurred the way it did?
- I always understood "application" like a gadget in the software world that just resolved one specific problem, and had that own definition till got distorted

I felt like I was alone in being frustrated at this trend. However I found a bit of relief to discover, through messing around in a Win98 virtual machine, that they were occasionally using the term "app" back then as well. Of course it wasn't as ubiquitous as it is now, but whatever.
Also I thought I'd never see the Xbox kid meme again. What an unexpected throwback!

Who has ever called a batch file an app
- My end users
  
  Powershell is a fortnite expansion right?

$ sudo appt-get install app
- chmod +x myApp.appImage

This is really, "what techs call it" and "what non-techs call it".
As a tech, I usually know what someone means when they "app".
It's "glitch" that drives me mad though. Glitch sounds like a ghost caused the error one tine only, versus some lazy coder.
- To be fair i would consider a glitch to be closer to a ghost causing it than a lazy developer.
  I consider a "bug" to be something caused by the code (bad error handling, bad logic, etc) and a "glitch" to be something more random or environmental
  
  Yes! Agreed. But for some reason, the only word everyone uses these days is "glitch". And I don't know why, but that really fries my grits.