He studied at Georgetown University, worked at Google and became infatuated with English Grammar and for years has been diving into the language, demystifying the do’s and don’ts for all who share the same passion! To truly understand the meaning of a word, it can be helpful to review multiple definitions from a few trusted sources. As may others have pointed out, it
is just a chunk of code that is copied over and over again with little or
no changes made to it in the process. «boilerplate code» is any seemingly repetitive code that shows up again and again in order to get some result that seems like it ought to be much simpler. Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. Boilerplate language serves a purpose but it’s important for those who receive it to read it carefully.
- They may be written to express a company’s mission or otherwise cast it in a positive light and are commonly added to a variety of its publications, press releases, or web pages, including the About Us page on many websites.
- «Taste the Rainbow» is all you need to know if you’re sifting through hundreds of press releases each day.
- This type of boilerplate, written by a party with superior bargaining power and presented to a weaker party, is often called an adhesion contract in the legal profession.
- To further your overall understanding of the word boilerplate, let’s open up your handy-dandy thesaurus to review a few synonyms and antonyms.
- In 19th-century newspapers, companies needed to share texts between their branches to publish the same or similar articles.
- Our word of the day is a unit of writing that can be reused over and over without change.
He term ‘boilerplate’ spread to media and the legal profession in the mid-1950s. The first use of the expression was in an article in the Bedford Gazette, criticizing boilerplates because they include fine print designed to circumvent laws. Businesses today use boilerplate clauses in contracts, purchase agreements, and other formal documents.
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Typically, the sender of such a letter needs to personalize it minimally, often by just adding their name or specific details to a pre-written greeting and body, making these templates highly practical for mass communication or repetitive correspondence. The expression ‘boilerplate’ originates from the steam boiler and safety valve invention by Frenchman Denis Papin in 1679. Boilers were introduced to England in the early 1700s, and the industry developed the kettle-type boiler in the early 1800s.
- Printers apparently dubbed those syndicated plates «boiler plates» because of their resemblance to the plating used in making steam boilers.
- In the days before computers, small newspapers around the U.S. relied heavily on feature stories, editorials, and other printed material supplied by large publishing syndicates.
- It’s code that can be used by many applications/contexts with little or no change.
- By extension, the idea is
sometimes applied to reusable programming as in «boilerplate code.»
The term derives from steel manufacturing, where boilerplate is steel
rolled into large plates for use in steam boilers. - Web development and design are unquestionably another of my passions.
- In my experience as a programmer, the proper kind of boilerplate code is typically a bunch of code that you start off with that’s not large and/or complicated enough to be called a framework.
This provides companies and individuals with protection from legal problems that can arise from sloppy work. In business, boilerplate can also refer to lengthy, recurring commands in computer code. Even though some wording is boilerplate, it is nonetheless part of the contract and you should assume it is relevant. Head on over to our website where you’ll discover a plethora of informative blogs, a number of helpful tools, tons of useful grammar tips, and more.
Examples of boilerplate
The term is also used by software writers to refer to coding that is created and reused over and over again. In this case, the IT specialist only has to rework some of the code to fit into the current need, without making major changes to the original structure. A press release is usually limited to a single URL, so select an appropriate page to fit your marketing strategy.This is a wonderful approach for companies to get consumers to go to their homepage for more information.
More from Merriam-Webster on boilerplate
Imagine a powerful story having to be retyped in every city/state so you can print and redistribute it. As you can imagine, this can’t be optimal, and it would take several days for the news to be published. Fortunately, there are still a couple of things to change this scenario. manage your finances First, let’s take the philosophy of the frameworks and go one step further. We can then extend them to make our frameworks specialized in the industry we are operating, providing a starting point for new projects that contain the most common features requested by the clients.
In computer programming, boilerplate is the term used to describe sections of code that have to be included in many places with little or no alteration. It is more often used when referring to languages that are considered verbose, i.e. the programmer must write a lot of code to do minimal jobs. The legal profession began using the term boilerplate as early as the mid-1950s when an article in the Bedford Gazette criticized boilerplate language as fine print designed to bury the unpleasant details of an agreement. In the 19th century, a boilerplate was a steel slab used as a template in the construction of steam boilers.
They are usually found in legal contracts and press releases, among other documents. In the 1890s, boilerplate was actually cast or stamped in metal ready for the printing press and distributed to newspapers around the United States. Until the 1950s, thousands of newspapers received and used this kind of boilerplate from the nation’s largest supplier, the Western Newspaper Union. Some companies also sent out press releases as boilerplate so that they had to be printed as written. In marketing and public relations, boilerplate refers to blocks of language in marketing materials or press releases that rarely change. They may be written to express a company’s mission or otherwise cast it in a positive light and are commonly added to a variety of its publications, press releases, or web pages, including the About Us page on many websites.
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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. All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional. They are important.They are important to your business.Journalists care about them.Consumers care about them.You should also pay attention to boilerplates. This will assist you in visualizing the final location of the boilerplate in your release.A press release is more effective when all of the following pieces work together in a clear way. These metal plates were attached to a cylinder printing press to produce a print.
boilerplate
Boilerplate can be any text that is reused repeatedly without substantial changes to the original. Boilerplates are commonly used online and in written documents by a variety of entities including corporations, legal firms, and medical facilities. For lack of a better term, the boilerplate is your best bet for getting your press release noticed by the media.Similar to a media kit, an EPK attracts the attention of music industry professionals. To solve this problem, major newspaper companies adopted «boilerplate text» or simply boilerplate term. These were metal plates with text stamped to share articles or text portions with other publishers easily.
How Boilerplates Work
You make a template and the only things you do for each instance of a template are the parameters to individualize an object this part is what we call boilerplate. You simply re-use the code you made a template of, just with different parameters. The wording of these passages is generally not up for negotiation with customers, who will often sign boilerplate documents without actually reading or understanding them. This type of boilerplate, written by a party with superior bargaining power and presented to a weaker party, is often called an adhesion contract in the legal profession. Courts may set aside provisions of such contracts if they find them coercive or unfair.