Whenever you hear the term “applications,” a question comes to mind: “How are applications created and what is the software creation process?” This report will provide all the answers to your queries. Prior to exploring applications, it is essential to comprehend the concept of a computer. As all software is created to function on computers, let’s examine a PC.
Computer
A digital device that demands input procedures and produces output, a computer requires software applications to carry out tasks. To illustrate this, let’s consider the scenario of creating a document in MS Word. The application, MS Word, takes input from us and the computer processes it to display the output on the screen. Through this example, we gain an understanding of how computers take in and process information to provide output. Consequently, we need software applications like MS Word to complete tasks on a computer.
Software
Software is a collection of instructions that teach a computer to perform specific tasks. This collection of instructions is also called an application or app. The software that runs on a computer is in the form of binary code, which is an executable file consisting of 0s and 1s, as shown in the figure below.
As every activity on the computer is performed with the support of these apps, the programmer can alter its functionality by writing a program. That’s why a computer is also referred to as a handheld machine. Writing software in the form of binary is impossible and tedious. Therefore, engineers created different programming languages like C, C++, JAVA, Python, etc. Sometimes multiple languages are used to create a single software.
How are applications created?
Any application is written in a language that is understandable for humans, which is called source code. This source code is then converted to an executable file using the compiling process. The figure below shows an example of a simple C program’s source code and the resulting application. A programmer can write this simple application in a reasonable amount of time. However, professional applications may involve hundreds or even thousands of programmers. Revision management is the concept that allows massive software to be broken down into hundreds or even thousands of documents. How does it work?
All the source code for a program is stored on a server, and every programmer stores a copy of these files on their server. They can make changes to the server when they’re ready. The system stores a detailed list of which files were changed, what these changes were, and who submitted them. If the app gets into a bad state, the programmer can revert the changes until the software application is working properly again.
Software developers work hard on their applications. However, there are always some issues with the code, and people call these issues bugs. Even after the software is released to the public, the application developers need to continue to correct bugs and improve the program. That’s why applications have updates or new versions that come out occasionally.