I'd like to second this - CodeSmith is shaping up to be a huge timesaver in the group I work in. The code templates are pretty intuitive once you realize that they're basically just like inline ASPX code, so if you've hacked inline ASP for years you'll be right at home.
We took our favorite collection class code from an existing application and changed it into two templates - a CS template that generates the class and the collection class in one file, and a second template that does the basic SQL SP's. The result is production quality code (providing your object maps pretty close to a table) that is standard throughout the group. This is the easy way to get standards going - when a CodeGen cranks out code that already meets standards, it's pretty easy to keep with them throughout the project. I gave the new templates a test run on a new admin app, and it felt like I was extending an existing application rather than starting from scratch. I just had to hook the datagrid up to the collection and add in validation.
This is an amazing product. It paid back our time investment quickly, and with huge dividends.
With the new version of CodeSmith being released I thought I would explain why it is that we chose to use CodeSmith over the many other code generators available.
When we decided to use a code generation tool to automate some of the more redundant sections of our project we took a look at all of the various code generation tools out there. One problem that I have always had with other code generators is that they force you to use their architecture. For every code generator that I looked at I did not like what I saw in the way of architecture, none of the generators I looked at accommodated for using custom business entities instead of using datasets or passing a reader around. CodeSmith was the only generator I found that really allowed me to completely customize how the code was generated. It took alot more effort to create the templates, but in the end it was the only generator that met all of our requirements, and so far has worked out perfectly.
-James
[Listening to: Harmony - Blonde Redhead ]