What is a boilerplate code? And why use it?

In Information Technology, a boilerplate is a unit of writing that can be reused over and over without change. By extension, the idea is sometimes applied to reusable programming, as in “boilerplate code.”

Legal agreements, including software and hardware terms and conditions, make abundant use of boilerplates.

For instance, a lawyer may give you a five page contract to sign, but most of the contract is boilerplate — meaning it’s the same for everyone who gets that contract, with only a few lines changed here and there.

In computer programming, boilerplate code or boilerplate refers to sections of code that have to be included in many places with little or no alteration. It is often used when referring to languages that are considered verbose, i.e. the programmer must write a lot of code to do minimal jobs.

Most professional web developers have created a collection of assets and snippets of code that they reuse on projects to accelerate development. There are some universal or near universal patterns that all websites share in common. Rather than continuously rebuild these, most developers start by copying the code they used for a similar project and then start modifying it.

Some developers recognize the value of these boilerplate starter templates and take the time to make the boilerplate more generic and share them online for others to use.

This is not only limited to web development. It is used beyond in AI/ML as there are more growing frameworks and libraries.