help me define process and procedure?

Question

I have never undertood the basic difference (if there is any) between these two terms "process" and "procedure", could you help me out? it can be answered in programming-terms or in any other terms you like.

Answer 1

I found this link which I think sums it up Process versus Procedures
I think the first two comparisons are crucial and give a good idea of what the rest elaborate on:

• Procedures are driven by completion of the task

• Processes are driven by achievement of a desired outcome

• Procedures are implemented

• Processes are operated

Answer 2

A process involves procedures, because the process is the whole, while the procedure is the part. In some languages (like vb, sql) procedure is a method which does not return values, in counterpart to the function that return values. Also in computing a process means an program that is being executed or at least is loaded in memory.

Process is business oriented (it can be represented by a workflow diagram), normally includes a set of business rules, while the procedure is algorithm oriented (it can be represented by a flow diagram).

See:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedure_(term)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_(computing)

Here are the definitions for both terms provided by the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL):

Procedure: A Document containing steps that specify how to achieve an Activity. Procedures are defined as part of Processes. See Work Instruction.

Process: A structured set of activities designed to accomplish a specific Objective. A Process takes one or more defined inputs and turns them into defined outputs. A Process may include any of the Roles, responsibilities, tools and management Controls required to reliably deliver the outputs. A Process may define Policies, Standards, Guidelines, Activities, and Work Instructions if they are needed.

Answer 3

In the sicp book, there is a section: 1.2 Procedures and the Processes They Generate

And the description of procedure may help understand:

A procedure is a pattern for the local evolution of a computational process. It specifies how each stage of the process is built upon the previous stage. We would like to be able to make statements about the overall, or global, behavior of a process whose local evolution has been specified by a procedure. This is very difficult to do in general, but we can at least try to describe some typical patterns of process evolution.

Per my understanding, a procedure is about how to program to resolve your problems with the program language while a process is what the computer need to do according to your defined procedure.

Answer 4

• Policy is a rule or regulation for a task.
• Process is a high level view on how to achieve task, simply it is a way.
• Procedure is an instruction to perform an activity within a process.