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    copied!<p>Application on its own means actually nothing. It is often used by people to talk about computer programs that provide some <em>value</em> to the user. A more correct term is application software and this has the following definition:</p> <blockquote> <p>Application software is a subclass of computer software that employs the capabilities of a computer directly and thoroughly to a task that the user wishes to perform. This should be contrasted with system software which is involved in integrating a computer's various capabilities, but typically does not directly apply them in the performance of tasks that benefit the user. In this context the term application refers to both the application software and its implementation.</p> </blockquote> <p>And since application really means application software, and software is any piece of code that performs any kind of task on a computer, I'd say also a library can be an application.</p> <p>Most terms are of artificial nature anyway. Is a plugin no application? Is the flash plugin of your browser no application? People say no, it's just a plugin. Why? Because it can't run on it's own, it needs to be loaded into a real process. But there is no definition saying only things that "can run on their own" are applications. Same holds true for a library. The core application could just be an empty container and all logic and functionality, even the interaction with the user, could be performed by plugins or libraries, in which case that would be more an application than the empty container that just provides some context for the application to run. Compare this to Java. A Java <strong>application</strong> can't run on it's own, it must run within a Java Virtual Machine (JVM), does that mean the JVM is the application and the Java Code is just... well what? Isn't the Java code the <strong>real</strong> application and the JVM just an empty runtime environment that provides nothing to the end user without the loaded Java code?</p>
 

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