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    If you generate it, it's not SOURCE code. It's intermediate code. I'm going to go cry now. Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 5:02
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    ARG!!! It doesn't matter what it looks like!!! Text, binary, DNA, if it's not the SOURCE it's not what you should touch when making changes. It's no ones business if my compilation process has 42 intermediate languages that it goes through. Stop touching them. Stop checking them in. Make your changes at the source. Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 5:07
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    XML is text and it plainly isn't meant for human consumption. :-) Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 9:25
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    @utku: "If something is not meant to be consumed by a human, it shouldn't be text": I completely disagree. Some counter-examples off the top of my head: the HTTP protocol, MIME encodings, PEM files -- pretty much anything that uses base64 anywhere. There are lots of reasons to encode data into a 7-bit safe stream even if no human should ever see it. Not to mention the much larger space of things that normally a human should never interact with, but that they may want to occasionally: log files, /etc/ files on Unix, etc. Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 14:03
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    I don't think "programming with punch cards" means what you think it means. I've been there, I've done that, and yeah, it was a pain; but it has no connection to "generated code." A deck of punched cards is just another kind of file--like a file on disk, or a file on tape, or a file on an SD card. Back in the day, we would write data to decks of cards, and read data from them. So, if the reason we generate code is because programming with punch cards is a pain, then that implies that programming with any kind of data storage is a pain. Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 17:46