A computer program is a collection of instructions, or statements, to perform a task or set of tasks to be carried out by a computer.

A program is commonly compiled into a file which can be executed from the computer’s operating system (e.g. Unix, Windows, DOS), and is thus known as an executable. In Windows, executables have an extension of .exe.

A single program or a collection of programs are often referred to as software.

Programs can exist in the following forms:

console program

A console program is a computer program designed to be used via a text-only computer interface.

form program

A form-based program is a computer program designed to use graphic forms in a graphic user interface (GUI).

web program

A web-based program is a computer program designed to be run from a web browser.