Unhappy with the lack of a sophisticated way to auto-generate public properties from private variables in Visual Studio, I turned to EMacs to implement my own version. The code at the end of this post is for VB.NET. It takes a buffer like this:

strLastName
strFirstName
intAmount
dblPrice

and changes it to this:

Private strLastName As String
Private strFirstName As String
Private intAmount As Integer
Private dblPrice As Double

Public Property LastName() As String
  Get
    Return strLastName
  End Get
  Set(ByVal value As String)
    strLastName = value
  End Set
End Property

Public Property FirstName() As String
  Get
    Return strFirstName
  End Get
  Set(ByVal value As String)
    strFirstName = value
  End Set
End Property

Public Property Amount() As Integer
  Get
    Return intAmount
  End Get
  Set(ByVal value As Integer)
    intAmount = value
  End Set
End Property

Public Property Price() As Double
  Get
    Return dblPrice
  End Get
  Set(ByVal value As Double)
    dblPrice = value
  End Set
End Property

You can easily configure the variable types it detects by modifying the alist *vb-types*. At work I have adjusted the template to expand into code complying with my company's coding guidelines. To use, visit a new buffer, type in the names of your private variables prefixed with a type designator, then type M-x props.

(defconst *vb-types*
  '(("str" . "String")
    ("dbl" . "Double")
    ("int" . "Integer")))

(defun var-name (var)
  (unless (< (length var) 4)
    (substring var 3)))

(defun var-type (var)
  (unless (< (length var) 4)
    (let ((type (substring var 0 3)))
      (cdr (assoc type *vb-types*)))))

(defun insert-private-vars (var)
  (let ((type (var-type var)))
    (when type
      (insert "Private " var " As " type)
      (newline))))

(defun insert-properties (var)
  (let ((type (var-type var))
 (name (var-name var)))
    (when (and name type)
      (insert "
Public Property " name "() As " type "
  Get
    Return " var "
  End Get
  Set(ByVal value As " type ")
    " var " = value
  End Set
End Property
"))))

(defun props ()
  (interactive)
  (let ((vars (split-string (buffer-string))))
    (erase-buffer)
    (mapc #'insert-private-vars vars)
    (newline) (newline)
    (mapc #'insert-properties vars)))