Stand-alone

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Stand-alone is a loaded word, used to categorise computer programs. The term tries to draw some distinction between programs invoked by some computer event and those invoked by other programs. However this distinction does not stand up to scrutiny, since the computer has usually to be running some program that prepares (and sometimes initially processes) the "stand-alone" program to begin with. Hence all programs are launched or prepared/processed by other programs (with the sole exception of the bootstrap loader), and no code can really be said to stand alone.

A distinction might be drawn between programs that run as operating system processes and those that are loaded as an add-on in the context of an existing process, e.g. a plugin. This distinction may make some sense, but the term "stand-alone" has been used inconsistently: for instance, on the Macintosh platform, the plugin code has often been referred to as being stand-alone.

A less ambiguous terminology refers to application and non-application code, since "application" seems to be a commonly-accepted cross-platform term for a program that runs as a separate process and is invoked as a direct result of some user action. The "non-application" code then has to be loaded and run as part of the process context of the "application" code, and there is no ambiguity about which is which.

Other usages

In computer games, a stand-alone game is one that can be played without requiring another game to provide most of its operating code (as opposed to an expansion pack, which adds to a previous game).

In television series, a stand-alone episode is an episode that is unrelated or connected to the broader plots of the show; it "stands alone" and can be watched without having seen the rest of the series, or missed without impacting one's understanding of the series.