Question

Can anyone please tell me the difference between DictionaryBase and generic Dictionary<TKey, TValue>, except that DictionaryBase is an abstract class! Both of them are strongly typed and I read somewhere that generic classes are better than non-generic ones in performance and should be preferred, so what is the exact use of DictionaryBase then?
Both the classes are almost same!

Any kind of help would be appreciated

Thanks

Answer 1

Dictionarybase is base class implementing the non generic IDictionary interface while Dictionary is the generic version of a dictionary implementing the generic IDictionary interface. Use of generics is preferred over non generics.

I think this would be more helpful When to use generics?

Using generic collections is generally recommended, because you gain
the immediate benefit of type safety without having to derive from a
base collection type and implement type-specific members. Generic
collection types also generally perform better than the corresponding
nongeneric collection types (and better than types that are derived
from nongeneric base collection types) when the collection elements
are value types, because with generics there is no need to box the
elements.

Also go through, Introduction to Generics

Generic classes and methods combine reusability, type safety and
efficiency in a way that their non-generic counterparts cannot.
Generics are most frequently used with collections and the methods
that operate on them. Version 2.0 of the .NET Framework class library
provides a new namespace, System.Collections.Generic, which contains
several new generic-based collection classes. It is recommended that
all applications that target the .NET Framework 2.0 and later use the
new generic collection classes instead of the older non-generic
counterparts