Major code generation is usually used when a language is inept (or not particularly adept) at doing something. Off the top of my head, I can think of three reasons why a language would be inept at doing something

• 1) A language could be inept at doing something because it lacks the specialization that would make it adept. Querying databases (facilatitated by SQL), generating parsers (facilitated by BNF or similar) and generating object accessors would fall in this category.

• 2) A language could be inept at doing something because it lacks the generalization that would make it adept. For example, working with Java Bytecode is more tedious than working in Java, so we do the work in Java and generate the Java Bytecode.

• 3) A language could be inept at doing something because it is primarily text based and/or non-interactive, and a GUI and/or interactive solution would be more adept. For example, GUI builders are often used to build GUI code.