Generating UI from DB - the good, the bad and the ugly?

We had a project which would generate the database tables/stored proc as well as the UI from business classes. It was done in .NET and we used a lot of Custom Attributes on the classes and properties to make it behave how we wanted it to. It worked great though and if you manage to follow your design you can create customizations of your software really easily. We also did have a way of putting in "custom" user controls for some very exceptional cases.

All in all it worked out well for us. Unfortunately it is a sold banking product and there is no available source.

it's ok for something tiny where all you need is a utilitarian method to get the data in.

for anything resembling a real application though, it's a terrible idea. what makes for a good UI is the humanisation factor, the bits you tweak to ensure that this machine reacts well to a person's touch.

you just can't get that when your interface is generated mechanically.... well maybe with something approaching AI. :)

edit - to clarify: UI generated from code/db is fine as a starting point, it's just a rubbish end point.