Now days, the term application can refer to a computer program. What is
being applied to what? My understanding is that application is short
for application program, but the question remains for the derivation of
the usage.

--
Thad

Thad Smith wrote:
"Application program" as opposed to "control program", i.e. operating
system. That terminology goes back to the 1960s at least.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

Thad Smith wrote:

<rank speculation>
Possibly it stems from a distinction between system programs (and
programmers, etc) and applications of those systems.
</rank speculation>

But that, if true, doesn't match my memory that I first started to hear
the term in the 1990's sometime -- while the distinction itself has
been around for a /lot/ longer than that.

OTOH, Wikipaedia seems to think my speculation is right (take that as a
vote for or against according to taste).

-- chris

Thad Smith wrote:
Isn't this standard usage in lots of engineering fields? For example,
electrical engineers can look in a catalog of parts and find things
like "the XYZ line of power supplies are very tolerant of heat and
can be used in applications where good ventilation is not available"
or "this keypad has both RS-485 and RS-232 interfaces and can therefore
be used in a wider variety of applications than the part it replaces".
I don't know for sure, but I would assume similar terminology is used
in other engineering disciplines.

So I have always assumed that the term "applications" comes from this
usage. That is, the computer is a part, just like a resistor, or a
capacitor, or whatever, and when you use it for something, that's an
application. And software that helps you make the computer work in
a particular application is therefore called "applications software".

- Logan