In this episode Stephen Heffner explains how automation tools can improve both the efficiency, and quality, of software development. Code generation tools still aren't all that useful, but there has been a lot of progress in automation systems that check code for best practices and quality.
You can check out Stephen's company (which makes software automation systems) at http://www.pennington.com/.
NOTE: Practical Software is the official podcast for the Software Engineering Productivity group on Linked:In. You can listen to other episodes of Practical Software. Other content for the SEP group is stored in our resource center.