this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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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.
Not even technically correct, unless...
When I press 'Reply', I am using the Reply app
Ugh I don't know why but this was the one that got me. Just no.
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:
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"
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.
Yeah, I thought I made that clear. I just don't like it.
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.
As is your right and duty.