Xtend is fast
Code generation adds to the development turn around time. We all know it : tools can slow us down. They take their share of CPU cycles during the daily development and all that automation is not worth it, if you have to wait for your machine all day long. Many template languages are interpreted and are therefore rather slow as they cannot benefit from optimizations done during compilation. Code generators written in these languages suffer from that of course, and if you don't care you can easily multiply the time your build takes with a slow code generator.Xtend code is translated to readable and idomatic Java code. It runs as fast as Java, which is *very* fast and there's no additional overhead nor dependencies at runtime. Rough measures have shown that code generators implemented with Xtend are up to ten times faster then the equivalent Xpand version.
Xtend is debuggable
As Xtend code is translated to readable Java code you can always use the advanced Java debugging tools you are used to. Additionally the Eclipse debugger lets you choose whether you want to debug through the Xtend source code or the generated Java code. You can even switch back and forth during the same debug session (see the screenshot).
Better IDE Support
Xtend's Eclipse support is propably the most advanced after Java. The integration between Xtend and Java is seamless : Navigation, Call Hierarchies and even cross language refactorings just work. And Xtend features the whole Java type system and gives you errors and warnings as you type.Template Expressions and Grey-Space Support
In contrast to typical template languages such as Xpand, templates in Xtend are expressions which yield some value. This allows for composing multiple templates and lets you pass the results around and process them.A unique feature to Xtend is the greyspace support. It solves the conflict between pretty printing a template and pretty printing the to-be-generated output. Common template languages cannot distinguish between indentation meant for the template and indentation meant for the output. Xtend can. Here's an example (note the different coloring of whitespace):
Better Extendability
In order to reuse a code generator and adapt it to the needs of a particular project, you need to be able to hook into it and change certain implementation details. In Xpand this was supported through AOP: You could hook into any template invocation and do what seems fit.Although very flexible, this approach is also very fragile. The original code generator cannot be evolved, since clients might hook into any template call and you break them easily. Even worse you don't get any compile-time feedback about the broken extension hook.
With Xtend you can use dependency injection together with extension providers. No AOP anymore and the solutions is even faster and statically typed. If you need to exchange some implementation, just reconfigure your dependency injection configuration and your are good.
