Code Generation Network
Many people have pointed out the existance of the
Code Generation Network. This looks like a very nice site and has a big list of code generation tools. While browsing through it, I found a link to
this interview of
Dave Thomas. I agree with a lot of what he has to say. Until recently,
CodeSmith has been a "smelly" code generation tool since it didn't have a lot of support for active generation, but with the recent addition of the VS.NET code generator it can now be used as an active generator. I also have plans to add command line support and, thanks to a great suggestion by Duncan Godwin, I have also added a
Nant build task to my TODO list. As soon as I can get
CodeSmith legally transfered to me, I will be able to start working on these ideas. I truely believe that
CodeSmith has the best template based code generation engine out of everything I have looked at and if I get to work adding more active generation support it will truely be a very powerful tool.