We want to control code at the call site, boilerplate helps with that by being locally modifiable.
We also want to systematize chunks of code so that they don’t flicker around and mess with a reader.
We wanted this since forever and no one does anything because anything above simple text completion is traditionally seen as an overkill, not the true way, not unix, etc. All sorts of stubborn arguments.
This can be solved by simply allowing code trees instead of lines of code (tree vs table). You drop a boilerplate into code marked as “boilerplate ‘foo’ {…}” and edit it as you see fit, which creates a boilerplate-local patch. Then you can instantly see diffs, find, update boilerplates, convert them to and from regular functions, merge best practices from boilerplate libraries, etc. Problem solved.
It feels like the development itself got collectively stuck in some stupid principles that no one dares to question. Everything that we invent stumbles upon the simple fact that we don’t have any sensible devtime structure, apart from this “file” and “import file” dullness.