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I was interested in all the attention to MyGeneration, went there[^] and noticed they had a link back to this survey.
"You get that which you tolerate"
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All surveys and polls are biased. Especially on the internet. Don't get me wrong, I love MyGeneration. Heck, my wife is going to leave me I love it so much. What? You think I'm biased too? Hey now - just because I am one of the guys that wrote MyGeneration doesn't mean I can't be objective! I have a new poll question:
How do you feel after you've generated code with MyGeneration?
A. WOW! I need a cigarette.
B. It's only 8:00 am and I've just generated the assembly for a new operating system. Thankyou MyGeneration!
C. Amazingly wonderfully spectacularly fantabulous.
D. I love it so much, I bought the company.
E. All of the Above.
Now that's an objective poll question!
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Obviously. And I'm sure you are objective. But any survey where one of the options is selectively directing those currently useing that option to the survey itself is a bit more biased than usual.
I have been thinking about looking into "data tier generation" software for quite some time, hence my interest in the survey. But, if one subtracts out the bias here towards MyGeneration, it is clear that roughly 50% of developers prefer rolling their own. The question than becomes - why is that?
My instincts tell me that the usefullness of any such generic approach to application design decreases exponentially with the size of the application. Or, that at some level, as with any third party tool, it ends up getting in the way as often as it helps resolve an issue. I have used my own generic solution to this problem for quite some time. However, I do believe in applying 'industry standard' solutions where appropriate, and intend to experiment with as many of these tools as time allows.
"You get that which you tolerate"
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MyGeneration, CodeSmith, and LLBLGen are all template based code generators, so they can pretty much meet any code generation need out there. Of course, there is a learning period for writing your own templates, but it's not all that hard for a developer to figure out. If you want to "pick the industry standard", that's a tough one. There is no "industry standard". Freeware tools like MyGeneration will always get a big following because of the pricetag. CodeSmith and LLBLGen are both popular and only cost a couple hundred bucks to get a full license. If I was on a large project and was banned from using MyGeneration for some crazy reason, I would push for one of the others. Doing large projects without code generation is just not an option for me anymore.
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I do believe it was posted on LLBLGen first, http://www.llblgen.com/tinyforum/Messages.aspx?ThreadID=5960[^] either way it is very common for vendors to alert thier fans about polls. Maybe you instead of being offended when you went to our site should have downloaded MyGeneration, you'd have your project done by now :->
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Mike Griffin wrote: Maybe you instead of being offended
I never said I was offended. I was simply making an observation that the larger interest in MyGeneration could be explained by a link setting right in the middle of your home page and was therefore invalid for any statistical purposes. I have no doubt that it is an excellent product.
Mike Griffin wrote: you went to our site should have downloaded MyGeneration,
I intend to - as time permits.
Mike Griffin wrote: you'd have your project done by now
I am sure thats true, except that the data base layer of the project I'm currently involved with is already largely in place (with my own involvement being minimal).
-- modified at 17:44 Monday 1st May, 2006
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But not by me, nor did I mail my customers to vote 
--
Lead developer of LLBLGen Pro: http://www.llblgen.com
Only the true wise understand the difference between knowledge and wisdom.
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Also very interesting to note is that there was a single thread on the topic on the LLBLGen forums, started by a *user* that actually uses the product. By comparison, there were multiple threads on the MyGeneration forums, two of which were blatent requests directly from the "site admin" himself (product author?) lamenting the fact their product was losing to LLBLGen and to vote for their product. All of the sudden in the past few days, MyGeneration has a huge lead over the other products. I'm shocked. I'd say the results are just a tad bit biased 
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Any opinions on the Visual Studio 2005 DataSet designer?
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I have been using MyGeneration successfully in a production application I am enhancing. The original contract programmer didn't like code generation in general because "you always have to make changes to the generated code".
Not so, sez I. What he gave us was hand-coded C# objects from tables with typically 100-150 columns (not a very good d/b design, but you go with what you have to go with), along with hand-coding procs for each CRUD operation the C# object calls, also coded by hand. There's only so much cut-and-paste you can do, then you have to code each column assignment statement. His objects are not badly designed, just expensive to create and maintain.
Add a column? Change a length? Use a different datatype? Yikes! Add to that the fact that we have no particular change management system, so I have to keep dev / test / prod in sync by hand as well, and I begin to Have Issues with the hand-coded approach.
For new tables, and old ones as opportunity presents, I use MyGeneration. Flexible programming model, fast generation, solid code. (It's even making me like using stored procs, which I have not been a big fan of in the past.) I'm currently converting a somewhat complex paper form, and the database design is evolving daily. It's just so easy when you simply point a a table, regenerate code and procs, and rebuild a DLL.
EntitySpaces sounds even better than MyGeneration in a lot of important ways. If I ever see some free cash come available in our department, I may ask for some to get a copy.
Steve Owens
who has been doing this long enough to know a good thing when it comes along
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I tried to use mygeneration but could never understand how to get it working...seemed to lack support for vb.net
so I still hand code for my needs.
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MyGeneration as a code generator doesn't support any particular language, we do have VB.NET mappings for all 13 databases and excellent dOOdads for VB.NET all written in native VB.NET so I'm not sure what you are referring to. The post above also said EntitySpaces sounds even better, but in reality EntitySpaces is generated by MyGeneration, I think he meant than dOOdads. MyGeneration can generate PHP, Java, Cobol, Xml whatever. But we do have a great VB.NET architecture named dOOdads, EntitySpaces supports VB.NET also however the VB.NET classes inherit from the C# base classes.
Thanx for all your postive comments. Inheriting from the generated class is the way to go, I love working that way !! It's not enough to just use a code generator, you gotta know how to do it right and not worry about hand edited changes, that's where we really shine.
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I never could get my head around the "doodads" stuff.
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Really?? I just converted a hand-coded VB.Net project to C# using MyGeneration and dooDads. Wow! Very solid architecture and so easy to use. It does create stored procedures - but - if you don't have to create them and they work - who cares? I haven't been using MyGeneration for very long, but I'm lovin' every minute of it.
It simply kicks butt!
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webber,
It really is worth your time to learn it. You will increase your productivity 10-fold. MyGeneration has great forums where you can ask questions, and there are plenty of people over there who will help you out.
__________________________
Matthew Noonan
EasyObjects.NET -- The O/RM for the Enterprise Library
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I had to spend some time to figure out how the templates worked. Now that I understand them I hand code my templates and then generate hundreds of stored procedures and custom business objects. As a programmer I always look for ways to make my computer work for me.
The biggest benefits I've gained from using MyGeneration are:
1. The objects I generate are 'abstract' which means I inherit from them to be able to instantiate them. I can override properties and methods in derived classes. This allows me to regenerate the base classes at any time and not worry about overwriting custom code.
2. Adherence to best practices - I might be under a deadline and decide to take some shortcuts when I am hand coding. I don't have to do cut corners when using MyGeneration.
3. Being more productive
4. Fewer bugs in my code from typos
5. It is FREE!
There are times when no clear code generation pattern emerges. No problem - I can still write hand crafted code that complements the generated code. MyGeneration allows me to write code that writes code.
Danny Crowell
www.crowsol.com
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I have used mygeneration to do DotNetNuke project, it was great experience using this stuff, less bug, don't need to take care of Data Access and SPs.
it is a very good code generator. Strongly recommended.
Make things easy, not doing easy things
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MyGeneration it's free, it's powerfull, it's amazing tool. Ready to almost all architectures..., thx to Mike Griffin
Giuliano Lemes Pereira
http://www.giuice.hpg.com.br
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I totally agree.
Though its "just" table level access and really is not able to get into "normal" business logic, it is fantastic when your boss says he "needs to change 1 LITTLE thing".
Many times you argue over this because of the amount of work effort. All I did was 10 minutes work, put my business logic back in (another 15 minutes with changes) and I was done with the "LITTLE" change. I did not tear his heart oru or ask for a Project Plan Change form, etc.
It also standardizes naming conventions, goes down the road of good coding practices, how-to-do's IFRAME (for example) and many other areas of which (I'm included) bad programming techniques.
I know how to make a database with foreign keys, relationships, and can code stored procedures with time and effort. Coding ASP.NET C#, with the proper stored procedures, structured code, so that IIS systems work well with other systems, thats MyGeneration at work.
To me its the greatest produce since, and including, sliced bread. Definitely a job saver.
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MyGeneration makes my life as a database application developer so easy that my clients are amazed by my speed. MyGeneration !!! what a product!
Uwascan
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i'm agree... it's amazing tool...
[a52][on the way...]
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MyGeneration absolutely gets my vote. I have found it easy to use and quite versatile. Thanks to the team for providing such a great free product! BTW, my team is definitely using it professionally.
John (grepninja@yahoo.com)
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It's a great tool -- if you are able to use one of the existing templates. But if you want to create your own, the lack of documentation and tools/IDE makes it an exquisitely painful experience.
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I can't agree more. MyGen has allowed my company to move forward in ways we couldn't possibly have done six months ago. And not only do they have an awesome product, they are responsive to support as well.
jax
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The tier-generator apart from the purist aspects is a real life saver. When you have a data tier with 500 tables (stop the blame game), and you show your manager
1. the ability to auto generate all CRUD operations
2. operations are all indexed hence by default optimized - happy dba
3. DA Layer that can be customized and autogenerated for all the 500 tables.
You shave 25% of work effort from you project. Not to mention your DA code is now standardized across the entire team for review.
It is a no brainer to make your PM/TL to buy into this approach once you have one success story.
Thats what mygeneration did for me
Narsi
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