"Vanilla" isn't boring
There's a lot to it under the surface.
Oh, that’s pretty vanilla…
Vanillla JavaScript
We’re gonna keep things simple with this design and go super vanilla...
Vanilla as a synonym for simple, plain, basic, stripped-down, and boring is so burned into the cultural vernacular that we forget how difficult it is to get vanilla right.
Somewhere along the way we decided that vanilla isn't quite as exciting, exotic, or desirable as flavors like chocolate and coffee and so the term came to connote something understated and maybe even mildly undesirable.
Over at Serious Eats, Brian Levy dispels the notion that vanilla is a single-note flavor:
The flavor and aroma of vanilla are the concerted effect of some two hundred volatile molecules (a note to my fellow non-chemists out there: molecules called “volatile” aren’t wild and unpredictable; they just readily evaporate under normal conditions)
That's certainly not boring or basic in the least.
Levy goes on to describe a chemist–grade process involving precise temperature control and measurements in grams for making homemade vanilla extract. Too much heat will damage the compounds in the beans. Too little heat leaves flavor on the table. The result of his process is potent vanilla flavor that brings out the true character of the beans.
The point is that seemingly simple things are often the most difficult to make or achieve. They take time and intentionality. It’s easy to make things complicated. It’s hard to distill complexity into something intelligible and useful, or in the case of vanilla, something delicious.
This is true for everything that touches my work world, from data analysis (which often involves a lot of data cleaning and processing before you can generate even remotely actionable insights); to writing, which involves lots of editing and culling to get to the diamonds; to web dev, which requires balancing user needs and technical affordances; to creating project management workflows that make processes clear and transparent for everyone.
The end product may seem “vanilla,” but it’s the result of wrangling complexity, mellowing out the chaos, and bringing things together in a way that’s both delightful and deceptively simple.
Discerning taste will notice the difference.
