#desing surface

[adamgbell]

Code Generators, You Suck

Code Generators, You Suck.  Well, some of you do. 

The scaffolding style code generators that generate out a good starting point from which standard coding takes over, those are very useful.

The Microsoft brand "design surface" based code generators (TableAdapters,WSSF) where the uml diagram of a class needs to be edited, rather than the actual class, those are more harm than good.  if fact they slow development way down.

The design surface itself, is not necessarily a bad concept.  it is just a GUI over top of a XML document.  Just don't use it to generate repetitive code.  If code is repetitive, factor it out until its DRY.  Don't break out the code generators.