This is just a topic for discussion. Here is the scenario. If my wife asks me if I can "make something" that will notify her on her phone when the washing machine is done, I say "Yes, I can write a piston to do that." I get a blank stare. If I say "Yes, I can write a program to do that." She understands. Is a piston a program? Is it a special type of program? Or is it just a rule in a rule engine environment?
The hub thinks that it is a full groovy app, a child app to be exact, but an app nonetheless.
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In my view, Hubitat apps are really more like scripts than apps. Hubitat is the app, everything that runs inside of that are just components of the larger Hubitat app. Usually, if you have code that can be added to a program by the user, it is called a plug-in, module, or an extension.
Since Groovy is a scripting language, I think of Hubitat apps as "scripts", or an "app-script" as Google likes to call them. In Webcore, the user created pistons are even further removed, so I guess they could be called child scripts.
It seems like a leap to call Hubitat apps actual apps. The Hubitat platform is the actual app that runs in a Linux based environment, any user code that runs inside of Hubitat is not really an app in itself, despite the terminology being used.
I think it depends on the context.
In the context you described, you can definitely call it a program. Why?
Because as you described, you already know your wife understands program to mean "something running on a computer that does stuff."
You're having a conversation with your spouse, not writing a technical manual 
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You can call it absolutely whatever you want in this instance. My wife is the same way only she understands everything as rules. Lol. So I just started calling everything rules regardless, she smiles, goes on about her day, and I can get back to breaking things. I mean improving them. 
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I avoid semantics in my house, and simply say that I can do some "nerd stuff". That provides wide berth to tap a keyboard, rewire, create a new circuit board, buy new stuff, etc.
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I think your wife's confusion is she may not know what a piston is in this context. It is a very nonstandard description of what you are about to create. I always thought the term was rather stoopid.
She's probably wondering why you think a professional basketball player would help you do that. 
