A software project generator sets up the starting boilerplate for a project, filling in the new project’s name and other details in various places throughout the new files. Project generators make starting new projects much faster and lowers the barrier to quickly trying an idea. Their output can be much more reliable than that of LLMs. Like all tools, they are useful in some situations and less so in others.
Being opinionated is what makes project generators useful. One that tries to have no opinions probably wouldn’t save you any time. I recommend creating a project generator of your own at some point because you can design it to be perfect for your personal workflow, and because creating a simple project generator is easy.
If you would prefer to use an existing one, there are many to choose from. Here are a few examples:
If you’ve already written the boilerplate for a type of project in the past, you won’t learn as much from writing it again. But if you haven’t written that boilerplate in the past, using a project generator could prevent you from understanding a lot of the new project’s code. On the other hand, it could give you a great starting point to learn what boilerplate works well and why. If you genuinely want to learn how to create a certain kind of project, it might be easier to start with some sample code that works than with a blank slate or the output of a nondeterministic LLM. I think it’s best to practice a variety of approaches until you’re comfortable with all of them so that your skills are well-rounded.