In applescript, what is an "application process"?

Question

I understand the difference between applications and processes from other questions. But I was hoping I could get a little clarification on what is happening in this bit of code.

(application processes whose visible is true)

Is "application processes" referring to all processes that are started by an application? Does that mean that there are processes not started by an application? Or could I just switch this to "processes" and take out "application"?

Answer 1

application process is just sub-class of process with a single property, namely the application file path. Using

tell application "System Events" to get every process

or

tell application "System Events" to get every application process

you will get an identical list because System Events can only access application processes.

The shell command ps can list all processes, where you can see the difference.

do shell script "ps aux"