Jim Zimmerman - ASP.NET, MVC, Ajax and ORM

This is by far by favorite release of Codesmith.  It has NetTiers as part of it, which is what I use for almost every project I create.  Why would I do such a thing?  Well to save time of course.  I am not trying to sell Codesmith, but if it was my job, I would probably do very well.  You see any time a developer can save time, be more productive and write code the proper way, you feel more empowered.  For years I have known that you can create prototypes very quickly using code generation, but the code generation tools I created were just the way I write code.  This can be good, but also bad. You see, with code generation you can automate creating code that is inherently bad also.  It depends on your style and how you adapt to change.  I have learned many lessons with code gen and have learned that the one that is best is the one that is easiest to change.  NetTiers is not always the best way, but nothing is always the best way.

NetTiers should be use when you need an admin to your application especially.  If your app is constantly changing and you want more dynamic control, then code gen may not be for that project.  Also if you have a team where you want to control the way they access the data layer, then code gen is great because it standardizes the way all of the team accesses data.