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More About Desktop Application
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Refers to applications running in a desktop (or laptop) computer in contrast
to Web-based applications over the Internet. Since the advent of the Web, developers
have been trying to make Web applications as interactive and responsive as applications
running within the client locally or in a client/server environment over the local
network. A simple, if imperfect analogy in the world of hardware would
be the relationship of an electric light bulb (an application) to an electric power
generation plant (a system). The power plant merely generates electricity, not itself
of any real use until harnessed to an application like the electric light that performs
a service that benefits the user.
Multiple applications bundled together as a package are sometimes referred
to as an application suite. Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org, which bundle together
a word processor, a spreadsheet, and several other discrete applications, are typical
examples. The separate applications in a suite usually have a user interface that
has some commonality making it easier for the user to learn and use each application.
And often they may have some capability to interact with each other in ways beneficial
to the user. For example, a spreadsheet might be able to be embedded in a word processor
document even though it had been created in the separate spreadsheet application.
User-written software tailors systems to meet the user's specific needs. User-written
software include spreadsheet templates, word processor macros, scientific simulations,
graphics and animation scripts. Even email filters are a kind of user software.
Users create this software themselves and often overlook how important it is.
In computer science, an application is a computer program designed to help
people perform a certain type of work. An application
thus differs from an operating system (which runs a computer), a utility (which
performs maintenance or general-purpose chores), and a programming language (with
which computer programs are created). Depending on the work for which it was designed,
an application can manipulate text, numbers, graphics, or a combination of these
elements. Some application packages offer considerable computing power by focusing
on a single task, such as word processing; others, called integrated software, offer
somewhat less power but include several applications,
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