This is great for someone who wants to get started to learn React, but is missing a ton that is needed for a real world production app.
* No isomorphic rendering
* No hot module replacement
* No generators
* No dockerization
* No Sass support
* No test environment setup
* No code splitting
What an odd and arbitrary list. SASS support over LESS over PostCSS over CSS in JS? Component boilerplate generation is required for production? Hot module replacement is required for production? Everyone using React is looking for an isomorphic solution? Docker support?!
I think the point of the project is to acknowledge that React requiring transpilation to use is 100% accurate and there needed to be a transpilation / workflow solution to make it easier to adopt. It wasn't let me solve every single problem for you, including setting up your production deployment environment using Docker.
Dockerization, are you crazy? This is just a simple boilerplate. If you want something absurdly complicated (and frustrating to work with imo), use something like Este https://github.com/este/este
It's goal is to be for a front-end SPA. None of that is needed for it's stated goals.
Also - HMR, generators, dockerization, sass, & test environments are not needed for many/most projects initially. When they ARE needed you'll be beyond the point you need this kit anyhow.
My point wasn't to belittle the work, they did a great job, it was just pointing out how far you can go with something like this. This just doesn't have as many of the things people need as other similar projects do.
It seems like they were shooting for the MVP here, not trying to make it the kitchen sink. Not everyone wants dockerization, Sass, isomorphic rendering, etc.
Granted, some things like hot module replacement and generators are not necessary, most of the others are (isomorphic rendering, code splitting, sass, dockerization).
I'm not saying you need those things for your personal react app going into production, but when dealing with bigger teams for a critical app they really become important tools
In all fairness, most "critical apps" won't be using a standardized boilerplate anyways. It makes little sense to optimize for the least-likely consumer.
1. Sass is not as needed as it used to be (native CSS variables, PostCSS, CSS Modules, Radium, inline styles etc.).
But of course many users prefer Sass. But Sass in its CSS syntax (SCSS) is (if I'm correct) just super set of CSS. You can always start project using vanilla CSS and when project will grow, you can add Sass.
There are two approaches to develop new projects: big design up front and YAGNI principle (you ain't gonna need it). I prefer YAGNI and I'm glad that Facebook generator is so minimal. But I don't know what they are planning to do with this project. I think this project would be a lot worse if they forced to use Sass(or Radium or any opinionated CSS solution).
2. code splitting? If I understand correctly it's Webpack feature needed mainly for production, not development. So why to add this on the very beginning of your project?
I guess what I was trying to bring up, is that this has already been solved by a bunch of people already, but with a lot more features. We use Gluestick, but others use stuff like https://github.com/mxstbr/react-boilerplate
