When to Use Metalama

Metalama is not for every project. Consider using Metalama if one of the following situations applies to your project:

• Large projects. Your project contains dozens of entities and hundreds of properties or methods requiring the same behaviors.
• Large teams. There is a large team of developers, and it is challenging to align everyone on consistent patterns and practices.
• Long lifecycle. You must maintain the project for several years—an investment in long-term quality makes sense.

When not to use Metalama

Conversely, avoid using Metalama if:

• Small and simple projects. If your project is trivial, the added complexity might outweigh the benefits. As a rule of thumb, each aspect should be applied at least 20 times to justify its use.
• Unexperienced team. Don’t embark on a Metalama journey if you lack senior developers or architects on your team. Like any powerful tool, Metalama requires maturity and wisdom in selecting use cases; misuse can introduce unnecessary complexity.

Which factors are almost irrelevant

• Run-time performance. Your code will run as fast or faster with Metalama than without it. Why faster? Since Metalama generates C# code automatically, it can use optimized, faster patterns that would be cumbersome to implement by hand.
• Compilation time. Metalama typically adds 25% to your dotnet build time, which is probably not a big difference for most projects. If it does seem important, it might mean Metalama’s benefits won’t outweigh the added complexity.

What are the principal use cases?