Price Comparison of .NET Code Generators
Here is a Price Comparison of .NET Code Generators. In order to compare these .net code generators, I installed all of the windows based applications on my machine to see how each one worked.
In my opinion, the “hands-down” winner is Agile Platform, but it is expensive. There is a free trial version that is a must-see if you want to know what the best looks like.
It seems like all of the .net code generators I reviewed are lacking in one thing or another, but by taking a combined approach you may be able to get almost everything you need.
Code Generators typically take one of three approaches:
- Bottoms-Up Approach – Allows one to define the fields involved in the application by starting with the database
- Top-Down Approach – Allows one to define the fields involved in the application by defining them in the user interface
- Template Approach – is where you just start with some static code and add variables and directives to the static code to generate output source code.
Most code generators create an editable gridview for each table involved. The more sophisticated ones add other features like membership authentication,charting, e-mail, web services, various deployment platforms, and so on.
Some code generators require that you use their proprietary software to make customizations to the application while others allow you to use the code generator to jump start a project. This latter approach allows you to customize the generated VB.NET or C# code directly in Visual Studio.
Most code generators require a learning curve to get started and some are a lot more intuitive than others.
If you know of any good .NET Code Generators that I missed, please let me know so I can add them to the list.
