Michael Smith: This time we are talking with Peter Bell about his CFUNITED Europe talk "Practical Code Generation". So why should a developer come to your session Peter?
Peter Bell: If they'd like to build maintainable applications more quickly and easily, they should learn the proven techniques that are allowing other developers to substantially improve their productivity by generating more of their code.
Michael Smith: What will you be covering in the session?
Peter Bell: Code generation is becoming increasingly popular both in the ColdFusion world and within the wider programming community, but there are a number of key distinctions that can help you to get a lot more value from
generating your code. For example, if you use "passive" code generation, it'll just save a bit of time upfront whereas "active" code generation will allow you to build and maintain your application more quickly. The difference is just the way you architecture your code and I'll be explaining what has been proven to work in projects around the world.
Michael Smith: Domain Specific Languages seem to be a hot topic these days. Will you be talking about those?
Peter Bell: Absolutely. Code generation is the easy part. The hard part is structuring the information you want to use to generate your code (your metadata). That is where Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) come in as they allow you to describe what you want your application to do more quickly and efficiently. We'll be looking at a wide range of techniques for editing, storing and consuming DSLs to provide attendees with a range of techniques for solving real world problems.
Michael Smith: And I believe you'll be talking a little bit about frameworks
as well?
Peter Bell: That's right. Frameworks aren't just about community efforts like Fusebox and Mach-II. Often when you develop a code generator, you'll create some kind of core framework to use between projects. At SystemsForge, we've actually created a complete framework for taking our DSLs so we don't have to generate code to create new applications - the framework does all of the work. The important point to realize is that whether you write a framework to interpret your DSLs or a generator to generate code is a decision you can make pretty late in the process. The important thing is to come up with the right structure for your meta-data - and that brings us back to DSLs.
Michael Smith: So, what would be your final comments to someone who is still not sure about whether they'd like to attend?
Peter Bell: Code generation and Domain Specific Language are all about making programming quicker, easier and more enjoyable. You have probably used some of these techniques already, but in this session I'll help you to round out your toolkit so you'll be ready to generate more of your web applications - more quickly and easily.
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Practical Code Generation:
Learn how to generate your applications in a fraction of the time by using the latest techniques proven to reduce application development times - from Software Product Lines to Domain Specific Languages.
Speaker Bio:
Peter Bell is a passionate advocate of Application generation and meta-programming in ColdFusion and writes the popular Application Generation blog (http://www.pbell.com). He has lectured both locally and nationally on using ColdFusion for application generation and to create software product lines and runs a company (http://www.systemsforge.com) that generates custom applications quickly and cost effectively.
CFUNITED Europe is Thursday 03/12/2008 - Friday 03/13/2008 in Hammersmith, West London UK.
It costs $749 until 10/31/07 then $849. For more information on CFUNITED Europe see http://europe.cfunited.com/
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