{"id":10894,"date":"2015-06-22T17:59:33","date_gmt":"2015-06-22T17:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/software-program\/"},"modified":"2015-06-22T17:59:33","modified_gmt":"2015-06-22T17:59:33","slug":"software-program","status":"publish","type":"definition","link":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/25084\/software-program","title":{"rendered":"Software Program"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span id=\"what_does_software_program_mean\">What Does Software Program Mean?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p> A software program is commonly defined as a set of instructions, or a set of modules or procedures, that allow for a certain type of computer operation. The term is also often used interchangeably with terms like \u201csoftware application\u201d and \u201csoftware product.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"techopedia_explains_software_program\">Techopedia Explains Software Program<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Although the terminology around a software program is somewhat vague, there are some guidelines for when people usually use the word \u201cprogram\u201d in relation to software. For example, in contrasting the use of the term \u201csoftware program\u201d with \u201csoftware application,\u201d it becomes clear that a software program is implicitly smaller in scope and often more basic.<\/p>\n<p>Most people use the word \u201cprogram\u201d to refer to a set of instructions that is used without installation or extensive architecture. Another way to think about this is that the term \u201csoftware program\u201d was used more commonly during the early days of computing to refer to the different types of software products that were made for specific platforms or systems and consisted mostly of computing instructions. Over time, the software program became an \u201cexecutable\u201d and then an \u201capplication.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>Nowadays, the word \u201capplication\u201d or the abbreviation \u201capp\u201d has largely taken over to describe more sophisticated software products that can run on different systems and have a lot of tools such as application programming interfaces that must be in place to allow for versatile use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Does Software Program Mean? A software program is commonly defined as a set of instructions, or a set of modules or procedures, that allow for a certain type of computer operation. The term is also often used interchangeably with terms like \u201csoftware application\u201d and \u201csoftware product.\u201d Techopedia Explains Software Program Although the terminology around [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7813,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"definitioncat":[230,239],"class_list":["post-10894","definition","type-definition","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","definitioncat-privacy-and-compliance","definitioncat-productivity-software"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.2 (Yoast SEO v24.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What is a Software Program? - Definition from Techopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Software Program and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Software Program\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Software Program and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/25084\/software-program\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Techopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/techopedia\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@techopedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/25084\/software-program#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/25084\/software-program\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Margaret Rouse\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#\/schema\/person\/f5dd538e31ee352d105b8af36c4268a5\"},\"headline\":\"Software Program\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-06-22T17:59:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/25084\/software-program\"},\"wordCount\":232,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/25084\/software-program#respond\"]}],\"articleSection\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/25084\/software-program\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/25084\/software-program\",\"name\":\"What is a Software Program? 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