4. Understanding the Types of Computer Applications

You can’t buy oranges in a hardware store. It doesn’t matter how diligently or how long you search. Hardware stores don’t sell oranges. That’s just not what they do.

It’s the same with software programs. You can’t make applications do things that they were never intended to do.

The difference between computer applications and hardware stores is that the people who run the hardware store will tell you they don’t sell oranges. But when you’re all alone working in front of your computer, there’s no one there to tell you that a certain application can’t do what you want it to.

Worse, it may look like the application can do what you want, but you won’t find out till later that you wasted hours and hours of work using the wrong type of program.

This chapter is a guide to choosing the right types of applications, or programs, to do different jobs.