Class Designer In Visual Studio - Is It Worth It?

Answer :

As a visualization tool, or for exploratory purposes (drawing up multiple options to see what they look like) it's not bad, but generally I find the object browser does fine for most stuff I care about.

As a code generation tool, it's a terrible idea.

The whole idea that we will design all our code structure first, then fill in the blanks with small bits of implementation is fundamentally broken.

The only time you actually know what the code structure should look like, is if you've done the exact same thing before - however then you can just use your previous code, and you don't need to draw up any new code in any kind of designer.

If you decide ahead of time to use a particular class structure before you've actually tried to solve the problem, there is a 100% chance that you will pick the wrong design, and shoot yourself in the foot.

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: No, not at all. There's a reason it hasn't been updated.

[EDIT] @ MrBrutal - Sorry - do you mean to generate code or just represent a design? Because I took your question as to generate code for you.

I guess this is old, but I use it a lot. It could definitely be improved, but I find it extremely useful to be able to visualize my class structure, and to be able to jump to a specific class or method by clicking on it visually.

It's also slightly easier to add classes/interfaces with than the solution explorer, although the new files always end up in the root folder, instead of the same folder as the CD.

The main benefit I find is to be able to see a group of closely related classes at once. I think the best approach might be to have a single CD for each code folder/namespace.