# I've never used it to its full potential... and I still wouldn't do without it...
[CodeSmith 2.5](https://www.ericjsmith.net/codesmith/) is available, and although I've mentioned it in a few articles on MSDN already, I have to tell you again... I use this utility all the time.

It is fairly obvious, if you look at the code from any one of my articles, that I use Code Smith to generate my strongly typed collections in almost every single project. What isn't obvious is how often I use it in my own projects that never get published (internal to Microsoft, or for myself)... it is invaluable and **I've never even created my own templates**. From what I understand, I'm missing out on so much potential time-saving it is almost silly that I haven't looked at creating my own templates yet, but being able to quickly create my **Jobs** collection for my custom **Job** class (very useful if you are planning to then bind the Jobs collection to a DataGrid) has been reason enough to _install Code Smith on every development machine I set up_. Anyway, the crazy thing is that Eric (creator of Code Smith) just came out with Code Smith Professional (or Studio, or something... 🙂 ), which appears to do even more (for $$, sorry folks)... and I hadn't even run out of things to build with the free version (which hasn't gone away... no worries) ... yikes. Well, I should really spend some time looking at it... I hate the thought that I could be saving a ton of time and I'm not!

What about you folks, how much do you use Code Generation tools in general? Do you use CodeSmith? What about Kathleen Dollard's book ([Code Generation in .NET](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590591372/duncanmackenz-20?creative=125581&camp=2321&link_code=as1) by APress)? Read it, loved it, hated it?