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by Sacho
3670 days ago
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> "Boilerplate" implies copying a bunch of code into your project that should be library code but isn't because it's too poorly designed to have an API cleaner than "just fork it, YOLO". It's dramatically harder to update than something with well-designed API boundaries. In most of these cases, "boilerplate" implies a choice of frameworks, libraries, build and test tools, with a minimal or recommended configuration, all tested for interoperability. The actual code advancing your application is minimal. In the case of megaboilerplate, it appears to be a mix of configuration files plus a mini hello world built on top of the technologies. The mini hello world seems to be mostly a demo of how the chosen technologies can interoperate, not really something that "should be library code". > Shared, standardized toolchains are harder to build but once you do they're a dramatically better long-term investment. Possibly, but I think you underestimate the effort required to create and distribute a toolchain that would become shared and standardized. In effect, a specific team might choose a particular boilerplate, tweak it to its needs, and the tools and libraries within that boilerplate become their "standardized" toolchain. |
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Not really, because we're already doing it. It's definitely hard, but it's also definitely possible.
ember-cli has unlocked major community-wide sharing that is otherwise not possible. Like a healthy addon ecosystem (https://emberobserver.com) where things are far more likely to _just work_.
And this has kicked off a virtuous cycle. Big engineering organizations with long-term vision are joining in.
> become their "standardized" toolchain.
That's exactly the problem: once you create _your own_ standardized toolchain, you are the only one who can document it, teach it, ensure other things are compatible with it, and integrate upstream upgrades. When a community works together to decide on a much broader set of standardization, that burden is shared and everybody goes faster. And developer knowledge is much more portable.
Nobody making iOS apps thinks it's smart or necessary to write their own XCode. People writing ambitious web apps shouldn't either. (And I say that as someone who finds XCode annoying -- it's _still_ better than trying to build it yourself from scratch for each app).