Jesse Schalken wrote:
I would also like to strongly discourage code generators.
Any code that has to be "generated" can and should have its common characteristics separated out with only unique characterstic remaining typically with an interface (i.e. type class) or polymorphic type dividing the two, creating a separation of concerns (this is really just abstraction).
All the facilities of my family of types is accessed through type classes already.
Every software project which I've worked on that used a code generator turned into a nightmare, because when we find we need to change something about the generator's output, all the already generated code has to be updated manually while at the same time maintaining all of the unique modifications that have been since the code was first generated. It's a horrible duplication of program logic and maintenance work.
Uh... why edit the generated code? Why not just modify the generator and rerun it? That's kind of the entire *point* of using a code generator rather than writing it all by hand...
Anyway, from my experience if you're generating code intended to be maintained by a human, you're doing it wrong. Though I am very interested to hear counter examples.
Yeah, I do get the feeling that if your code is repetative enough to require automation, you're probably doing it wrong...