re: Template PreProcessor

Kathleen — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:52:40 GMT

Perhaps its worht a separate blog post, but the largest benefit of language neutral templates is allowing you to use the templates of any avaialble architcture. Currently a set of templates outputs in one language, not both. When the CodePlex project we're starting goes live, we expect it will have a single set of CSLA 3.5 templates. The folks doing that can build it and fine tune it exactly once.

I want expressing architectural detals in code to be independent from the language its expressed in.

re: Template PreProcessor

Kent Webb — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:43:50 GMT

Kathleen,

Maybe you are trying to solve a problem (automatic template conversion) that doesn’t really need to be solved.

This statement is based upon the following premises and understanding:

1) The text inside the XML literals can be anything (e.g. VB.Net or C# style syntax)

2) The utility functions such as OutputFunction that output VB.Net code live in one namespace and the version that outputs C# code is in another namespace. Only one namespace is referenced by a given template.

3) Most business application developers would want to end up with either a set of VB.Net or C# output classes, but not both.

4) If #3 is not the case for some people, there are excellent tools for under $200 that will reliably convert this type of code between VB.Net and C# (especially if you can adjust the going in template to output code that is readily convertible).

I can think of a few times where it may offer value to convert a template, but that should be a point in time and not ongoing.

1) When I download a cool template that does not output the syntax I need, a converter would give me head start on getting what I want.

2) If my employer is switching from one language to the other due to fad or resource availability, then I would want to leverage the investment.

3) #2 raises the possibility of a consultant wanting to maintain one set of templates and be able to convert to the other syntax for a particular customer.

Now there certainly is the COOL factor that comes into play. However from a potential user of the GREAT work you are doing here, I would recommend you put any additional work for the template converter story on the backlog. This is exactly what your closing statement about pushing it to open source says to me. Let those who really need it, invest in improving it.