[Haskell-cafe] Code that writes code

[Brandon S Allbery KF8NH]

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On 8/24/10 17:51 , Richard O'Keefe wrote:
> On Aug 22, 2010, at 7:34 PM, Jesse Schalken wrote:
>> I would also like to strongly discourage code generators.
> 
> I've used ad hoc code generators a lot, and never had
> reason to regret it.
> 
> The key point is that ALL maintenance of the generated code
> must be done by maintaining the generator and its input,
> NOT by patching the output.

I have one additional exception:  I will sometimes autogenerate a skeleton
by e.g. grepping over a source tree.  This has the opposite constraint:
once generated, you don't regenerate it unless you can characterize it well
enough that you can treat it as above; but usually it's a one-time code
refactoring.

- -- 
brandon s. allbery     [linux,solaris,freebsd,perl]      allbery at kf8nh.com
system administrator  [openafs,heimdal,too many hats]  allbery at ece.cmu.edu
electrical and computer engineering, carnegie mellon university      KF8NH
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