Code Generation in Microsoft .NET [Paperback]

Kathleen Dollard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 22, 2004

Code generation has the potential to revolutionize application development. Rather than handcrafting each piece of code, enterprises will increasingly turn to code generation, based on templates and application of business logic, to automatically generate code to perform a variety of tasks. Code Generation in Microsoft .NET presents the fundamentals of code generation. Code generation is already used extensively in Visual Studio .NET – every form-based application contains potentially hundreds of lines of "wizard" created code, which is modified as the developer sets various properties. Strongly typed datasets, XML schemas and web service proxies are also generated automatically by Visual Studio. This results in a huge cost savings and improvement in software reliability.

Developers need both the technical details of how to accomplish code generation in .NET as well as a coherent series of steps to follow to incorporate code generation into their development. Code Generation in Microsoft .NET teaches developers how to adopt these techniques in their own development efforts. To accomplish this, this book introduces a series of five steps that leverage code generation both within and between projects in the organization. The mechanics of code generation introduced in the book are organized around these steps, and provide the tools to leverage code generation for significant payback on the very first application where it is used.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dollard has been involved in the industry for a long time. She started (she claims) by experimenting with programming in junior high. After graduate work, she worked with the computer group at Texaco Research writing Fortran, and helped usher in the age of PCs doing Lotus 123 macros. After working with 4GLs and Clipper, Dollard became an Independent Consultant, ultimately moving to Visual Basic when it became clear that Computer Associates would not release the Windows version of Clipper.

Dollard is well-known for her participation over the last 15 years with on-line communities, including BBS’s, Compuserve, Fawcette, DevX and Microsoft public newsgroups. She has been recognized in some form for her online work since 1994 and a Microsoft MVP since 1998. She is also active in the real world communities of user groups – most recently with the Denver Visual Studio User Group and the Northern Colorado .NET SIG startup. A well known writer and speaker, she is currently doing pioneering work in code generation using .NET and XSLT.

Product Details

• Paperback: 730 pages
• Publisher: Apress (January 22, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590591372
• ISBN-13: 978-1590591376
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,116,294 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bold step forward in the art of code generation, February 16, 2004

By 

Robert O'Connell (Pretoria, South Africa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Code Generation in Microsoft .NET (Paperback)

I thank the author for this fantastic book on code generation.

Contrary to what I have read on the web this is not a hard book. It is the first truly creative book on .NET I have read.

The code, that is downloadable, includes both C# and VB code.

While this is not a book for developers learning .NET it will prove invaluable to developers who have already started getting tired of writing or adapting the same repetitive code project after project.

This book while introducing a truly unique way of using the tools in .NET is also a good read. The author's writing style is engaging and not the usual mindless .NET prose found in many books.

I have used my own `brute force' code generation since 1998 in VB6 to generate classes and forms. When I started porting my code generation to .NET I soon realised that I would have to redesign and rewrite to fully utilise ADO.NET and started looking for a new application.

After trying all the generation tools out there in the hope of finding a replacement for my own application I was disappointed to see that they all had a `philosophy' that one had to embrace to use their tools and that all the tools were inflexible from a developer's viewpoint. Even the templates only give the developer the functions in the `Black Box' without the option of extending the functionality.

This book takes a bold step forward in the art of code generation giving developers the tools to extract information from a database structure and to then generate custom stored procedures and classes from this metadata using XSLT. The book's main focus is on using XSLT templates but also discusses the use of brute force and CodeDOM for code generation. As the developer controls every aspect of the code generation and the system is extendable it is guaranteed to enhance the creativity and productiveness of developers.

The book includes an excellent appendix on XML, XPath and XSD that will get you up to speed on these technologies quickly.

In this book I have found what I could not in any of the code generation products, total control of the process and extendibility.

An ideal companion book to get is Expert One-on-One Visual basic .NET Business Objects by Rockford Lhotka. As the templates in the book are based on Mr Lhotka's CSLA framework his book will make extending and understanding the templates easier.

Amazon makes it extremely easy for buyers to compare books and to have access to all the information needed to make an informed purchase. I am always amazed by reviews from people who did not understand what the book they bought was about.

This book's title is self explanatory and easy to understand. If you do not want to learn how code generation can make your life as a developer easier and more enjoyable then do not buy this book.

53 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fine book on model driven generation for .NET, February 14, 2004

By 

Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Code Generation in Microsoft .NET (Paperback)

I don't understand the viewpoint of the first reviewer. A book isn't one star simply because the content of the book wasn't what you intended. If you expected a book on reflection I'm not sure why you thought a book on code generation was going to do it for you. Perhaps you are thinking about runtime code generation, but I'm sure that would be in the title.

Back to the book. I think it's great. The only flaw I can find is that it's almost too detailed in spots. She presents an entire framework for building SQL DDL, stored procedures, an ORM layer, and user interface with both WinForms and HTML from XML descriptions. She also provides a larger perspective on code generation in the context of the development cycle as well as avoiding the common pitfalls. The jovial tone also keeps it light.

Anyone skilled enough to understand how code generation can revolutionize their development process should be able to handle the VB, XML, and XSLT used in the book, and either apply the principles in derivative work, or use her code directly.

45 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Frustrating Book.., August 27, 2004

By 

Mox Blu "Mox Blu" (St Paul, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Code Generation in Microsoft .NET (Paperback)

This is a very frustrating book for a couple of reasons. First contrary to what the book and some of the previous reviewers have said, there is no C# support for this book.

I quote the back of the book, "In addition to the text, the tools in the book (downloadable in both VB.net and C#)..." This is untrue. While there are some code examples in C# in the download, almost everything is in VB.net. This includes the code generation harness, which to me is the whole reason to buy the book. If you don't believe me download the code before you buy the book. There is a note in the read me that says as much.

While this might be of small significance to all you VB types, I came to MS from the Java/C world and don't know VB.

The second frustrating thing about the book is that it is about how to deploy a code generator not how to write one. There is a lot of discussion about metadata extraction, how to write good handcrafted code, etc. But the only discussion about how the code generation works is way out in Appendix C: Details of the Code Generation Harness.

Now if this is supposed to be a beginning book on code generation, shouldn't it talk about the code generator and how it works in the actual book??

I wish that someone would have told me these things before I bought it. I think down the road this may be a useful book once can get my hands around the generator. It has chapters on things metadata extraction and interface generation that look very interesting. For that reason I am giving it a 3.