Topic: Software Applications

English for Software ( Applications )

Without software applications, it would be very hard to actually perform any meaningful task on a computer unless one was a very talented, fast, and patient programmer. Applications are meant to make users more productive and get work done faster. Their goal should be flexibility, efficiency, and user-friendliness.

Today there are thousands of applications for almost every purpose, from writing letters to playing games. Producing software is no longer the lonely profession it once was, with a few random geeks hacking away in the middle of the night. Software is a big business and the development cycle goes through certain stages and versions before it is released.

Applications are released in different versions, including alpha versions, beta versions, release candidates, trial versions, full versions, and upgrade versions. Even an application's instructions are often included in the form of another application called a help file.

Alpha versions of software are normally not released to the public and have known bugs. They are often seen internally as a 'proof of concept'. Avoid alphas unless you are desperate or else being paid as a 'tester'.

Beta versions, sometimes just called 'betas' for short, are a little better. It is common practice nowadays for companies to release public beta versions of software in order to get free, real-world testing and feedback. Betas are very popular and can be downloaded all over the Internet, normally for free. In general you should be wary of beta versions, especially if program stability is important to you. There are exceptions to this rule as well. For instance, Google has a history of excellent beta versions which are more stable than most company's releases.

After the beta stage of software development comes the release candidates ( abbreviated RC ). There can be one or more of these candidates, and they are normally called RC 1, RC 2, RC 3, etc. The release candidate is very close to what will actually go out as a feature complete 'release'.

The final stage is a 'release'. The release is the real program that you buy in a shop or download. Because if the complexity in writing PC software, it is likely that bugs will still find their way into the final release. For this reason, software companies will offer patches to fix any major problems that end users complain loudly about.

Applications are distributed in many ways today. In the past most software has been bought in stores in versions called retail boxes. More and more, software is being distributed over the Internet, as open source, shareware, freeware, or traditional proprietary and upgrade versions.

Perhaps the most common software application today is the office suite. The office suite is an integrated package of productivity software meant to keep your professional life in order. The office suite normally combines any or all of the following applications: word processor, spreadsheet, database, Personal Information Manager ( PIM ) / Email program, presentation programs, and desktop publishing (DTP) software. Electronic publishing software is also included in some cases. Some popular examples are Microsoft Office, Open Office, and iWork.

Mastering an office suite is one of the basic tasks of being an IT Professional. There are hundreds of settings and features that can be hard to master such as AutoCorrect. It can take months or even years to master every useful feature in an office suite, but this knowledge normally pays for itself with increased efficiency. In short, know your office suite!

Typical features of an office suite include: pull-down menus filled with common tasks, macros to add personalized tasks to the application, and of course the ability to create, import, and export documents in many file formats including open formats such as Extensible Markup Language (XML), Rich Text Format (RTF), and Comma Separated Values (CSV). In addition, most office suites can handle .XLS files and .DOC file extensions without much problem. When saving files in an Office Suite and sending them to others, it is always best to use an open format like the ones above unless you know all the users have the same office suite.

How did the office suite become so popular? The word processor was an early killer app in the late 1980's that made personal computers spread into offices and homes everywhere. Many users were shocked at how technology could improve their writing. No longer did the average manager need a secretary to type a letter. Even a manager after little training could merge documents, search and replace, create headers and footers, indent, cut and paste, and last but not least, spell-check and grammar-check!

The spreadsheet was another killer app for business use. Spreadsheets are used for everything from accounting to project management. Sophisticated data analysis can be performed and shared within hours of using these programs. The first popular spreadsheet was Lotus 123. The most popular example now is Microsoft Excel and Open Office's Calc. Imagining business life today without spreadsheet applications would be very difficult.

Larger organizations with thousands or even millions of data records to store have come to rely heavily on database management systems (DBMS) or just databases for short. People use databases to enable instant access to records, filtering results to get exactly what they want, when they want it. There are many popular databases in use today including Microsoft Access in the home and small office, and SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, and many more examples in organizations of all sizes.

Presentation software is a popular way to present new ideas to co-workers and potential customers. PowerPoint was one of the first and still the most popular in this category. Newcomers to this genre of software include Open Office's Impress and Apple's Keynote. Mastering a presentation program should be one of your first tasks as an IT professional.

a Personal Information Manager (PIM) is a generic name for programs that keep your contacts, todo lists, reminders, email, and much more together in one place. Microsoft Outlook is the current champion in this area, however Apple, Google, and Mozilla Foundation have released similar email and calendar tools which are bringing a little more choice to this genre.

Desktop publishing ( DTP ) software is no longer solely in the realm of the graphic designer, but now typically used in the home and small office to design brochures, pamphlets, stickers, catalogs, and more. The main difference perhaps between word processing software and DTP software is the emphasis on design and layout that exists with DTP software. The most popular DTP packages include Adobe Indesign, Adobe PageMaker, an open source alternative program called Scribus, and Microsoft Publisher.

Okay, that was a brief introduction to applications including the most popular one, the office suite. You will learn about other types of applications and more about software development in later units.

Discussion Questions

What applications do you use every day? Which ones do you like and which ones do you not like? Why?

If you have the financial resources to develop any application you wanted to, what would you develop? Explain how your application would improve the lives of its users.

Do some research and write a short summary of the differences between a 'beta version', an 'alpha version', and a 'release candidate' of an application.

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