[michaelpb]

I'm totally with you here. Like, ideally you should be able to clone, install packages, and then do ``npm run start'' or ``python manage.py runserver'' or whatever, and the result should be a mostly functioning web app running locally. If it needs certain attached services, they should be 1) as standard/boring as possible (eg SQL, so you can have mocked versions of them for tests), 2) and added sparingly in only well-motivated situations (eg do you really need to have that caching DB, before you even have profiled real traffic?)

IMO investing time to keep applications "normal" like this pays off in the long run. It keeps development closer to "greenfield", which causes a general multiplying effect. Tutorials are slightly more likely to work, 3rd party packages will be quicker to integrate, etc etc.

(Note that this is separate from dev/prod parity, which is also good.)