Back in 2016, I had a package which was called LaraCogs. It was initially a boilerplate app. Then grew into a tool that added various files and adjusted a basic Laravel app. But due to consistent changes to Laravel's base app, it became cumbersome to maintain the package. My needs kept changing, so I scraped LaraCogs and put together a basic boilerplate app again. So I built Scaffold, and I'd like to detail why I think boilerplate projects are not bad. 

Maintenance

Packages can be hard to maintain when built around third-party elements with consistent changes. Instead of making a few updates, you have to explore the impact of those updates on deeper stub files and the patterns they follow etc. I'm a big fan of Laravel Shift, which allows me to update projects of any size quickly. So running Laravel Shift on Scaffold takes all of 5 minutes tops. This process lets me examine those changes and apply them to any app which was based on Scaffold. 

Improvements

Similar to the maintenance benefits, I can easily make adjustments to Scaffold, and when these improvements are obvious and beneficial to other apps, I can quickly extract them and apply them to the other projects. This is very beneficial when exploring new dependencies. Its easy to place something inside a tiny app you know very well and then carry that forward versus having to examine its impact in a package, spin up a new Laravel instance, run the package, and test the effect on the app.  

Experiments

I use Scaffold for all sorts of experiments, testing ideas, testing integrations testing UI adjustments. This is the most significant benefit of a boilerplate project versus the LaraCogs package or things like Laravel presets. Presets and starter kits are handy tools but are a giant pain when rapidly testing and tinkering with a new idea. I can explore something in minutes on Scaffold and take those ideas to a new or old app, or leave them in Scaffold when needed. 

The development world created an odd stigma around boilerplates with the power of packages propagating through all development languages (Mostly PHP and JavaScript are what I'm looking at). The only downside to boilerplates is when you let them become stagnant as if they are perfect and no longer require updates. But a good boilerplate is no different than a real-world MVP. It still takes effort and maintenance to keep it in good standing.