Computer program

A computer program or software program (usually abbreviated to "a program") is a step-by-step list of instructions written for a particular computer architecture in a particular computer programming language. A layman equivalent example would be writing a step-by-step list of instructions in English instructing a human how to make a Peanut butter and jelly sandwich (the human being the specific architecture). More often than not, computer programs are compiled or assembled into non-human readable format. Executable uncompiled programs are referred to as scripts.

See also

• Turing machine
• Programming language
• Computer software
• Programmer
• Source code
• Extreme Programming
• Operating system
• Programming paradigm
• Firmware / Device driver
• Polyglot program