Advantages of Programmatic App Building

My team has a set of old GUIs created and (sort of) maintained over the years using GUIDE. Over time more functions have been added to our library, and in general the function library and GUI library has become a little clunky. I'm starting a big overhaul of the function library and GUIs to clean things up, fix bugs, modernize, etc.

At the least I've decided to redo the GUIs in app designer. I was recommended by a former colleague to write the apps programmatically, since once you understand the syntax through app designer, you're already 90% of the way there to write programmatically. I wrote some test apps in app designer, then started to redo them programmatically. In addition, I've started to teach myself OOP, and have made the GUIs using classes, similar to how app designer packages them. This has been nice because I'm able to make a superclass as a GUI template for all future GUIs I plan on making (includes header, general methods, etc.).

Before I get too deep, however, I'm wondering if it's actually worth my time to write all these apps programmatically instead of just using app designer. Currently, this is how I see it:

Advantages of Programmatic App Building

• Better understanding of UI syntax and OOP
• Flexibility in app building and app templates

Disadvantages of Programmatic App Building

• More up front time learning syntax
• Slower to physically layout app (versus using App Designer)

For those that have more experience building apps both through App Designer and programmatically, what are the advantages of both? I have enjoyed so far learning how to do OOP and programmatic app building, but I'm just wondering if I'm wasting my time here or if there are some unforeseen benefits of doing so. Thanks in advance for any advice.

-PG

[Steven Lord]

FYI the GUIDE to App Designer Migration Tool for MATLAB on the File Exchange may be of use to you to mitigate at least part of your second disadvantage by using your GUIDE GUIs as a starting point for your App Designer apps.