What does vanilla mean?

Question

The vanilla adjective appears in many places: plain-vanilla java, vanilla javascript: what does it exactly mean?

From context, is seems to stand for something "plain".

When is a specific code considered vanilla and when is it not? Plain, like not wrapped in a framework?

Answer 1

Vanilla often refers to pure or plain. So in terms of programming languages, it means either without the use of 3rd party libraries or without the use of frameworks.

Answer 2

From wiki :

Computer software, and sometimes also other computing-related systems like computer hardware or algorithms, is called Vanilla when not customized from its original form, meaning that it is used without any customizations or updates applied to it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla_software

Answer 3

It derives from the time when, of the various flavours of ice-cream available, vanilla flavour was the most common, simple and often even the only one available. Other flavours were rarer and more exotic.

In programming terms it does not refer to anything specific but implies any or all of:

• No bells and whistles
• No extra (perhaps unnecessary) features
• Uses no external libraries
• The pure language without any extras

Despite how boring "vanilla" might be seen in terms of ice-cream, it's rarely used derogatively in programming.