I'd probably use metaclasses if I had the kind of problem where code generation could actually help. The last time I saw a project using code generation where I thought that it ought have to used metaclasses was a tool to generate python code from swagger descriptions. Django's ORM is a good example where metaclasses were used to good effect (there are very few of those). In general I'm extremely suspicious of anybody who claims to have the kind of problem that requires either metaclasses or code generation would help though. It is suitable only for problems that are very, very, very abstract (e.g. like an ORM or REST API interaction framework). In 90% of cases I've seen the person attempting to use it vastly overgeneralized the problem that they actually had in an attempt to prepare for future problems never arose. In the process of doing that they then created a code clusterfuck that was hellishly hard to understand and debug (and in some cases I was left to clean up the mess). It wasn't simple and it can't, intrinsically, ever be simple (there is some language theory behind this). I could be convinced otherwise by describing your problem, but right now I'm 80% convinced that what you have described is an XY problem and that you're attempting to do this because you overgeneralized your problem. If you describe the actual problem you're solving it might help. More on reddit.com

I've done the same thing (well, generating java from python in this case) using str.format. - while it feels a bit wrong on some level, it's a lot easier to see whats going on than using an AST for instance. 2015-10-21T09:55:55.453Z+00:00 ... I recently developed a command-line tool for Jinja2 especially the code ... More on stackoverflow.com

Fascinating. The number 1 tool is also the site where the article is hosted. More on reddit.com

I use PyCharm's AI assistant for code generation. It's pretty efficient. More on reddit.com