Are there differences between EnvDTE or CodeDom when generating Code

Question

I have the requirement to generate and read some CS classes with a DSL, I have adopted one method for reading the CS files using EnvDTE and my colleague has used CodeDom to produce the CS files.

Is it just sugar or is there a big difference between...

codeClass.AddFunction("DoSomething", vsCMFunction.vsCMFunctionFunction, "bool");

and

     CodeMemberMethod membMethod = new CodeMemberMethod();
        membMethod.Attributes = MemberAttributes.Static;
        membMethod.ReturnType = new CodeTypeReference("bool");
        membMethod.Name = "DoSomething";

I subjectively prefer the EnvDTE but do not know what the 'real' difference is.

Info: C#, Visual Studio 2010

Answer 1

Using EnvDTE, I'm not sure you can manipulate AST like you can with CodeDOM. I would go with CodeDOM, or NRefactory from SharpDevelop project, which is another open source C# parser/generator.

Answer 2

CodeDOM does not have a way to read source code to produce an AST. If all you need to do is generate C#, then CodeDOM ships with the .NET framework and so your application would not require Visual Studio to be installed.