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Cheat codes are useful to the mod developer, so that they can make adjustments when testing things in game context. There are arguments for having a mechanism for turning the whole set on or off, which kind of makes the "on" setting a super-cheat-code, so it probably doesn't change the discussion much. But cheat codes can be tuned to their purpose, and don't really break the game, especially if they are reversible when you don't like the result.

Exploits are always things the developer didn't intend, so in my opinion they always break the game. And if they were intended, they're not really exploits. Sometimes the game author wanted you to think outside the box and do something non-standard. I can think of a few places in Diablo where you could get into a situation where you could attack with no risk of damage to yourself, but you had to set that up by luring the opponent to a specific place, or use a special weapon with the right range, and frequently the character who could do those things would have offsetting difficulties elsewhere. That kind of thing actaully enhances the gameplay.

The effect either has on the game really depends on whether you can go back and remove the effect later. If you use a cheat code to get past a really difficult part of a game, but can reload a save game and retry without the cheat once you know what you're doing, it's not a bad thing. In some games you'd never get to see the final levels if there weren't cheat codes to get you there! Some "exploits" are really part of the game as intended (RoF for example).

So the question is: do you go back and do it again without the cheat when you use one?