I Avoid Code Generators

Fri, 31 Dec 2010

Anytime I see an MVC with a Code Generator feature, I start getting worried! I know that Zend Framework, and Cake PHP have decent command consoles to create some base pieces and it isn't considered "real" code generating. But when I see "CRUD Generator", I get scared. That means I'm tied into their framework the way they like doing things. I better fully understand how their system works!

In my opinion, it's a really bad idea to use a framework or program you don't fully understand! I've used NetBeans to build a GUI in Java, but I had to slow down and say, "hey wait a minute, what am I doing?" When a problem arises, and it will, I won't be able to solve it because I have no clue what this automatic code builds.

I can't seem to get into a framework or application I don't believe in. I've circled through ZF, CakePHP, CodeIgniter, Yii, and Symfony too many times. I gave up and wrote my own because there is no official standard, this bugs me. Ruby is primarily Rails, Python is primarily Django, PHP is anything. I suppose when ZF, Cake and CI come out with their 2.0 versions I'll take another look.

Another thing that kind of bugs me are many of the low-level tutorials circulating the internet, this can never suffice for practice! When I do a walk through I might see how a few things are done but it does not give me that pragmatic mindset.