Software (software in Chinese mainland and Hongkong, Taiwan Province Province, English: Software) is a series of computer data and instructions organized in a specific order. Generally speaking, software is divided into system software, application software and middleware between them. Software not only includes computer programs that can be run on a computer (computer here refers to a computer in a broad sense), but also documents related to these computer programs are generally considered as a part of software. Simply put, software is a collection of programs and documents.

A computer program or software program (usually called a program) refers to a set of instructions that indicate each step of a computer, usually written in a programming language and running on a certain target architecture. For example, a program is like a braised pork recipe (program) written in Chinese (programming language), which is used to guide people who know Chinese (architecture) to cook this dish. Usually, computer programs should be compiled and linked into a format that is not easy to be understood by people but can be understood by computers, and then run. Programs that can be run without compilation are usually called scripts.

Application, that is, a game software includes programs (such as *. Exe for windows platform. Apps on the mac osx platform, etc. ) and other pictures (*. Bmp and so on. ), sound effects (*. Wav, etc ) and other accessories. And it is called "software" together with other files (pictures, sound effects, etc.). ). It can be understood as a set of specific related programs, a piece of software.

Overall:

Software refers to the finished product of a program, which is composed of programs. The scope of application programs is narrower than the first two, and more refers to programs that meet the direct needs of end users. In everyday language, the three can sometimes replace each other.