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As someone who works for themself, balancing productivity with learning is on my mind a lot. Yes, creating my own boilerplate is attractive from a learning exp

As someone who works for themself, balancing productivity with learning is on my mind a lot. Yes, creating my own boilerplate is attractive from a learning experience. Except when it's not learning but figuring out how to configure Webpack. Or how to get HMR working. Then it just becomes a chore and I explore Github for the best boilerplate for my needs. To me, a boilerplate and a library aren't significantly different. The former is just exposed a lot more.

Hyra 9y ago
I find that people (me included) get lost when there's "new tech" in a boilerplate. Rather than using it we try to poke and prod to see how it works and why. Before you know it, it's hours later and you haven't done what you set out to do :)
dexwiz 9y ago
Libraries with invalid default parameters need the most boilerplate config. An empty config file should create a working default setup.
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  And that's how you end up with a bunch of MongoDB databases in production without authentication turned on! When picking the defaults to use without config, be sure they're settings that you want people to use.
taneq 9y ago
Likewise self-employed, I find myself increasingly strict on making new knowledge 'pay rent'. It's heresy hereabouts to say "I don't want to learn that new thing" but if you spend a week learning a new framework or package to solve a problem when you could code up a custom solution in three days, you've wasted time. Learning is an investment and you only get returns if you benefit from the knowledge. Sharpening your saw is great but if you just want some firewood you should use your trusty old blocksplitter.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  if you spend a week learning a new framework or package to solve a problem when you could code up a custom solution in three days, you've wasted time. However, if you code up a custom solution that ignores some important detail of some deeper area of knowledge like security or concurrency, then your "3-day" solution might literally wind up costing millions or hundreds of millions. (Exercise: Name some famous historical precedents from famous companies relevant today.) Of course, the downside for your garden variety consultant is probably only worse by a factor of 2 to 10, but the point remains. This is why the mastery of knowledge and practical experience necessary to reliably do such a cost-benefit analysis is very valuable. The upside in making decisions like this is something like saving 4 days or a week of programmer time. The downside can be literally worth a 21st century fortune.

Hyra 9y ago

I find that people (me included) get lost when there's "new tech" in a boilerplate. Rather than using it we try to poke and prod to see how it works and why. Before you know it, it's hours later and you haven't done what you set out to do :)

dexwiz 9y ago

Libraries with invalid default parameters need the most boilerplate config. An empty config file should create a working default setup.

wlesieutre 9y ago
And that's how you end up with a bunch of MongoDB databases in production without authentication turned on! When picking the defaults to use without config, be sure they're settings that you want people to use.

taneq 9y ago

Likewise self-employed, I find myself increasingly strict on making new knowledge 'pay rent'. It's heresy hereabouts to say "I don't want to learn that new thing" but if you spend a week learning a new framework or package to solve a problem when you could code up a custom solution in three days, you've wasted time. Learning is an investment and you only get returns if you benefit from the knowledge. Sharpening your saw is great but if you just want some firewood you should use your trusty old blocksplitter.

stcredzero 9y ago
if you spend a week learning a new framework or package to solve a problem when you could code up a custom solution in three days, you've wasted time. However, if you code up a custom solution that ignores some important detail of some deeper area of knowledge like security or concurrency, then your "3-day" solution might literally wind up costing millions or hundreds of millions. (Exercise: Name some famous historical precedents from famous companies relevant today.) Of course, the downside for your garden variety consultant is probably only worse by a factor of 2 to 10, but the point remains. This is why the mastery of knowledge and practical experience necessary to reliably do such a cost-benefit analysis is very valuable. The upside in making decisions like this is something like saving 4 days or a week of programmer time. The downside can be literally worth a 21st century fortune.