Are code generators bad?

Question

I use MyGeneration along with nHibernate to create the basic POCO objects and XML mapping files. I have heard some people say they think code generators are not a good idea. Wha

Answer 1

I think that Mitchel has hit it on the head. Code generation has its place. There are some circumstances where it's more effective to have the computer do the work for you! It can give you the freedom to change your mind about the implementation of a particular component when the time cost of making the code changes is small. Of course, it is still probably important to understand the output the code generator, but not always. We had an example on a project we just finished where a number of C++ apps needed to communicate with a C# app over named pipes. It was better for us to use small, simple, files that defined the messages and have all the classes and code generated for each side of the transaction. When a programmer was working on problem X, the last thing they needed was to worry about the implentation details of the messages and the inevitable cache hit that would entail.