What is CodeFactory™?
In relation to the Application Lifecycle Management space, our first commercial product is designed to support standardized software automation. As the gold standard for .NET application delivery tools, Microsoft’s Visual Studio provides a publicly extensible framework which LifeCycle Delivery has leveraged to create a powerful software automation factory. The latest version of CodeFactory is available to use for free at the Visual Studio Marketplace and you can register your free license key at the CodeFactory website.
Code generating tool kits commonly have two significant drawbacks which limit long-term adoption/usefulness. These include limited template flexibility and a dependence on bundled run-time code, libraries and/or reflection. These tool kits limit your team to building code the way that the automation vendor intended when they built it.
CodeFactory offers a fully supported Authoring capability which allows you to customize ANY code automation tasks to fit your desired architecture or application standards and evolve as better methods emerge. Also, CodeFactory does not require you to bundle run time libraries or alter your code or in any way to take advantage of its features. By generating code 100% at >design time< we eliminate the performance overhead of reflection and even support the ability to version different automation templates per solution or team depending on your needs.
Leveraging this powerful tool can reduce coding time by 20-40%, while improving the quality and supportability of your system. When we decrease the time spent on routine, repetitive hand coding you have more time to focus on the more creative elements of application development. Our robust set of features cuts development time and increases your efficiency from end to end. You’ll find that CodeFactory™ will quickly pay for itself in improved developer throughput and overall code quality.
CodeFactory™ is an extension to Visual Studio 2022 that is focused on enabling small or large teams responsible for the delivery of .NET (C# & ASP) solutions to design, build, maintain, support and update/refactor their source code assets much more efficiently. It also gives architects and product owners more control over the consistent implementation of their architecture standards and patterns.
Business benefits include:
Reduction in Delivery Time - Probably the most important benefit to a business is the reduction of time to build and deliver software. The use of software factories reduce the effort needed to construct “plumbing code”, or software logic that is repetitive in nature and can be built in an automated fashion. For example, every application has, or should have, code for handling exceptions, validating data, disposing of unnecessary objects in memory, security authentication and authorization, etc. Instead of re-writing this code each time an application is built or when an organization’s methodology compliance rules change, CodeFactory™ can automate construction of this type of code, reducing the time to market.
Reduction in Application Defects - With or without established coding standards and code reviews, application code tends to vary widely in implementation when two or more developers are involved. Even when only one developer is writing code, variations appear over the course of an application’s lifecycle due to the introduction of new requirements or new technological advancements, etc. Most of the time these variations are never addressed and refactored due to project schedule constraints. The result is a functional but brittle application which is difficult to maintain and contributes to the technical debt associated with the application. With CodeFactory™, much of an application can be automatically generated to a consistent pattern. When new requirements arrive or new methodologies are introduced into the architecture of the application, the CodeFactory™ author(s) can simply modify the template(s) and re-run the actions to consistently apply the changes without losing the code written by the development team in the interim.
Reduction in Maintenance Costs - One of the big sources of code maintenance inefficiency is inconsistently implemented code. If two developers are given the same problem to solve they will use different approaches for how to solve these problems. This means that when defects are found in the application or enhancements need to be added, the existing style of development has to be discovered which takes up valuable time. With CodeFactory™ generated code there is only one style of implemented code. This makes it easy to find and easy to fix by simply updating the CodeFactory™ template and regenerating all the impacted code sources.
Reduce Application Code Shortcuts - One of the big maintenance problems with applications has been due to using shortcuts to get the development done. Most applications today do not use well-documented or easily understandable application code due to the fact it just takes longer and costs more money to create. With CodeFactory™, development teams can automate the creation of higher quality application code. This will empower developers to build more robust, longer-life applications and enable easier maintainability of the application in the long term.