Why do we call it “boilerplate code?”
buttondown.email
buttondown.email
https://www.nei.org/resources/statistics/us-nuclear-plant-ow...
Here are old and modern examples where the boilerplate is a standardized plate that's filled out using punched letters/numbers.
https://lestaret.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/boiler-3a.jpg
https://www.steephillequipment.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/0...
(am also in the MechE space)
True, but as you say the meaning of words shift. It is entirely plausible that they were exposed to the term in its bureaucratic meaning, and continued to use it without any connection to actual boilers - the same way we do today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHRDLU https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Etaoin_shrdlu
I don't think that's the case at all. Lots of work was done computerising newsrooms in that period.
No one ever called it “boilerplate code” for any reason having to do with boilers or typesetting or water heaters.
It’s a language idiom. It entered common use through reasonably well documented avenues, and that is via typesetting.
We use it because that’s just how language works. All these “it makes more sense to me if it referred to such and such” misunderstand language.
I would say the article captures early etymology but this could be why we call it boilerplate.
What I'd like to learn is the earliest computer related usage of the term. Wikipedia says[0]:
> The term arose from the newspaper business. Columns and other pieces that were distributed by print syndicates were sent to subscribing newspapers in the form of prepared printing plates. Because of their resemblance to the metal plates used in the making of boilers, they became known as "boiler plates", and their resulting text—"boilerplate text". As the stories that were distributed by boiler plates were usually "fillers" rather than "serious" news, the term became synonymous with unoriginal, repeated text.[2][3]
> A related term is bookkeeping code, referring to code that is not part of the business logic but is interleaved with it in order to keep data structures updated or handle secondary aspects of the program.
Navy Contract Law (U.S. Bureau Naval Personnel) ix. 212/2 -- "This type of clause has proved so valuable that it is presently standard ‘boilerplate’ not only in shipbuilding contracts but also in almost every kind of contract."
The first reference in the OED for it being used w/r/t computer stuff is 1990:
L. Wall & R. L. Schwartz Programming Perl vii. 379 -- "Like mus itself, man2mus is not 100% effective, but can save you a lot of time producing the initial boilerplate."
Neat.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=boilerplate
And the OED on the original 'boiler plate'
1. Usually as two words. A plate or sheet of metal of suitable thickness and strength to be used in constructing the shell of a boiler. Also as mass noun: metal in the form of such plates. Cf. boiler-iron n. at boiler n. Compounds 2.
1793 Star 13 Nov. (advt.) Table of the number and dimensions of Boiler Plates and weights thereof, suitable for Boilers, from eight to sixteen feet and a half diameter.
1860 D. K. Clark & Z. Colburn Recent Pract. Locomotive Engine i. i. 1/1 The earliest recorded trials of the strength of boiler-plate, are those of Mr. Fairbairn, made in 1838.
1874 J. H. Collins Princ. Metal Mining (1875) xiii. 74 The kibble is simply an iron bucket made of boiler plates, riveted together.
1915 J. Wedgwood With Machine-guns in Gallipoli i. 4 Our mechanics..lined her bridges with boiler plate and leaky sand-bags.
Boilerplate's early use was referring to boiler material, but it likely got semantically mixed together with the term for "standard form plate affixed to a boiler", as this term is actually more from the legal industry where it's literally a document with blanks you fill out, which more closely fits this definition.
https://afspacemuseum.org/artifacts/apollo-boilerplate-capsu...
Lest we forget why those nameplates and the standards they reflect matter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana_(steamboat)
> Sultana was a commercial side-wheel steamboat which exploded and sank on the Mississippi River on April 27, 1865, killing 1,169 people in what remains the worst maritime disaster in United States history.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/stereotype
1798, "method of printing from a plate," from French stéréotype (adj.) "printed by means of a solid plate of type," from Greek stereos "solid" (see stereo-) + French type "type" (see type (n.)). Meaning "a stereotype plate" is from 1817. Meaning "image perpetuated without change" is first recorded 1850, from the verb in this sense.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/cliche
1825, "electrotype, stereotype," from French cliché, a technical word in printer's jargon for "stereotype block," noun use of past participle of clicher "to click" (18c.), supposedly echoic of the sound of a mold striking metal (compare native click).
In early printing, a plate would be assembled from individual letters of type before it was used for printing. However, it quickly became apparent that certain words or phrases were used a lot, so typesetters would create "a solid plate of type" for those words or phrases to speed up the typesetting process.
before the stereotype process, you printed from the individual letters of type, as people still do today for flyers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_%28printing%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letterpress_printing
A large part of the printing business was to print fill-in-the-blank business stationary, like orders, invoices, etc.
So a stereotype came to mean a standard form that you could adapt to whatever context by just changing a few details.
1. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/sterographs-origin...
it’s correctly attributed, just one hypertext layer deeper
Of course, the computer metaphor involves electronics that do, in fact, figure out how to start without external assistance, despite the human metaphor tending to be a myth!
It was a term used in printing presses for text/content that could be reused.
> "Boiler plate" originally referred to the rolled steel used to make boilers to heat water. Metal printing plates (type metal) used in hot metal typesetting of prepared text such as advertisements or syndicated columns were distributed to small, local newspapers, and became known as 'boilerplates' by analogy. One large supplier to newspapers of this kind of boilerplate was the Western Newspaper Union, which supplied "ready-to-print stories [which] contained national or international news" to papers with smaller geographic footprints, which could include advertisements pre-printed next to the conventional content.
The same can be true of boilerplate code, which in the same article is defined as
> the sections of code that have to be included in many places with little or no alteration
It’s remarkable to see a sentiment that’s so common in the internet era showing up in 1894.
Today, you’d probably phrase it as ‘we’re in an attention economy due to boilerplate’ or ‘the signal to noise ratio is worse due to boilerplate’ or something (with modern ‘boilerplate’ being electronic rather than mechanical).
There is a famous ancient Greek quote, that AFAIK nobody can agree on the author with basically the same sentiment. The written word surely destroyed our civilization.
"For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise."
It's a lot like what people say now about the internet, Google etc.
SOCRATES: … Among the ancient gods of Naucratis in Egypt there was one to whom the bird called the ibis is sacred. .... The story goes that Thamus said much to Theuth, both for and against each art, which it would take too long to repeat. But when they came to writing, Theuth said: “O King, here is something that, once learned, will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memory; I have discovered a potion for memory and for wisdom.” Thamus, however, replied: “O most expert Theuth, one man can give birth to the elements of an art, but only another can judge how they can benefit or harm those who will use them. And now, since you are the father of writing, your affection for it has made you describe its effects as the opposite of what they really are. In fact, it will introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own. You have not discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; you provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will imagine that they have come to know much while for the most part they will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of really being so.”
<https://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-1/socrates-...>
Note that this is actually Plato writing what many philosophers consider more a literary than literal work (see, e.g., Peter Adamson of The History of Philosophy podcast and book series), through his character Socrates, who then quotes another, so three levels of nested narrative and storytelling.
And while we're noting, "Plato" is itself believed a nickname or pseudonym, with his birth name likely being "Aristocles".
It's just that the GGP though it was funny that the sentiment was as old as the 19th century. I'm just pointing that it was older.
But now I’m realizing that might be me just coming at it from a modern angle, while the original 1894 author might have just meant ‘lots of writing = bad.’
This was 20 years before the invention of the linotype machine (1884) that this author claims it was named after.
In 1896 "The Typographical Journal" did use "boiler plate" to refer to the type of printing process, but not to it being a pro-forma piece of information: https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Typographical_Jo...
"Boilerplate" also refers to the branding plates that were placed on boilers that contained repeated information on every boiler. I think it's more likely the term comes from that.
It's annoying the author isn't on twitter where this could be corrected!
EDIT: The "Advisory Opinions" source is mislabeled and was published after 1989. [1] The "Typographic Journal" refers to boiler plate as a derogative for a low quality newspaper:
> The next city visited was Paris, Ill. which "supports" four newspapers. The only one worthy of mention is the Beacon … The other newspapers thive on "boiler plates" exclusively [2]
[1] https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Advisory_Opinions_on...
[2] https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Typographical_Jo...
My point about "Typographic Journal" is that their usage is quite different - they are using it as a synonym for low quality, not the kind of fill-in-the-blanks usage we see now.
In 1851 "De Bows Review"[1] talks about how it is a felony to use unstamped boiler-plate, conceal the plate on the boiler-plate or counterfeit the stamp. To me that goes to filling-in of boilerplate with details (using the stamp) which seems a more likely origin than the "lower quality" usage used by "Typographic Journal".
[1] https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/De_Bow_s_Review/y5wR... (and see page vii which shows this was published in 1851)
The origin of the term in spaceflight (according to the wiki, at least) is that they were literally constructing full-size / full-weight mock ups of capsules from steel:
"The term boilerplate originated from the use of boilerplate steel[3] for the construction of test articles/mock-ups. Historically, during the development of the Little Joe series of 7 launch vehicles, there was only one actual boilerplate capsule and it was called such since its conical section was made of steel at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. This capsule was used in a beach abort test, and then subsequently used in the LJ1A flight. However, the term subsequently came to be used for all the prototype capsules (which in their own right were nearly as complicated as the orbital capsules). This usage was technically incorrect, as those other capsules were not made of boilerplate, but the boilerplate term had effectively been genericized.[citation needed]"
If you open your article with hyperbole, don't be surprised if I take the rest of the article with a huge grain of salt.
Twitter _is_ on shaky ground. Maybe it will recover and soar, but it's not an exaggeration that it could spiral down.
Oh you haven't shared any data? Oh yeah. Okay.
That said, I can’t help but feel like this one premise is unsubstantiated.
> But where does it get the meaning of being “uncreative” copy-paste code?
I’ve never heard of boilerplate being described in quite those terms.
In my experience, boilerplate is frowned upon for exactly one reason: we tend to type it out manually despite the fact that it never differs. That’s something that coders know should be automated, and it’s a waste of energy when it’s not. The exact same problem linotype and boilerplate molds solved.
Perhaps I’m simply missing the point and splitting hairs.
Some people nag they write boilerplate code but for me it seems they never found ways to automate it or simply copy paste.
https://steelplates.in/how-to-manufacture-steel-plates-sheet...
From vague memory, the two huge issues for armor plate (especially ~150 years ago) are:
- Having the extremely heavy equipment needed to roll very thick plates. ~Nothing except warship armor was anything resembling that thick, for such equipment to even have been developed previously.
- The specialized metallurgy & treatments needed to make "hard" armor. Iron/steel plate for other purposes (boilers, etc.) was optimized for physical properties which bore very little resemblance to "resistant to penetration by high velocity cannon balls".
Adobe Pagemaker was originally Aldus, named after Aldus Manutius, a renaissance printer and creator of italic type.
Thank you!
1) Linotype machine contains positive type molds, it assembles them into lines and mechanically left/right justifies them
2) Lino machine pours liquid metal into the line of type to make a negative image (mirror writing)
3) Lino operator runs in k roller over finished article's type and prints a quick copy
4) Copy is sent to readers/copy holders who check the spelling/grammar
5) Lino operator fixes bad lines
6) backwards type articles is sent to subeditors who lay out pages (using fixed type for headlines and including photos)
7) a papermache-like substrate is heat pressed on to the flat page producing a positive image
8) the substrate is bent into a half cylinder and a negative version is cast in to metal
9) the half cylinder is bolted to the main press along with the half cylinder for the facing page
10) the press rolls making positive images and collating all the papers from the different rollers into newpapers
So for the record positive->negative->positive->negative->positive to make a hot metal paper
hardware - firmware - software
In that context, making metal plates for (steam) boilers would be one of the dullest and most repetitive work sorts of work that they'd do.
Twain seems to me to know the physicality of words and language, as well as the full process from idea to composition to typesetting to printing to distribution. His professional life spanned the period over which telegraphy emerged as a dominant factor in long-distance communication, where printing increased in speed from perhaps 100 impressions an hour to a million or more, and where the typewriter replaced handwritten manuscripts and correspondence.
He also struggled with the economics of writing and publishing, contemplating suicide in San Francisco with a nickle and a revolver to his name, being bailed out by his father-in-law and a Standard Oil executive, and going through bankruptcy. This all by a man now considered among the very best authors the United States has produced. The market can very much be an ass.
This is much welcomed! Too many interesting things I missed because they were presented in a fragmented series of thoughts on twitter. I would just never open those links because the experience was jarring. If twitter chaos means people joining the article writers crowd, what a gain!
This is where the term comes from in printing (the boilerplate was the required details for every page that didn't get changed).
Then the same was used in code (we used the printing concept of 'boilerplate'), the required element for code in order to get started with a project.
Fortunately, we are instead blessed with an etymology post, which is far more delightful to read, in my opinion.
What trickery is that?
You might look up Jung's 'sychronicity'.