On: No Silver Bullet (1986) [pdf]

[Too]

Boilerplate in itself is not complexity (eg import statements), it’s just tedious and unergonomic. In fact it can reduce complexity, again with example of imports being a better alternative than global symbols.

Coupled boilerplate on the other hand is complexity, where if you change x in front end you also must change corresponding x in backend.

[the_af → Too]

You're using a very specific notion of boilerplate and complexity. I mean, I've never heard of imports being described as boilerplate...