Computer Applications: Standalone vs. Client-Server

Standalone applications

A standalone application is a program that can work offline, that is, it doesn’t necessarily require a network connection. Therefore, when writing such an application, we’ll need to provide all the resources the program will require. These resources can be images (such as icons used in the application), files to store program configuration, and so on.

When learning to write applications, most of your programs will likely fall into this category. It’s usually pretty straightforward to create these applications because we won’t need to interact with other programs. Examples of programs that fall into this category are text editors such as Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on Mac, simple games such as solitaire, and paint programs.