Question

I noticed some people declare a private variable and then a public variable with the get and set statements:

private string myvariable = string.Empty; public string MyVariable {     get { return myvariable; }     set { myvariable = value ?? string.Empty; } } 

and then some people just do the following:

public string MyVariable {     get { return value; }     set { MyVariable = value; } } 

Being a bear of little intelligence (yes, I have kids… why do you ask?) I can’t figure out why you would choose one over the other. Isn’t it just as effective in using a public variable that you can set any time using the set method of the variable?

Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

UPDATE: I corrected the second example after several people pointed out it wouldn’t compile. Sorry about that, but the question still remains…

Answer 1

This is a very interesting read on this topic. However, I am pretty sure I have read somewhere on MSDN that objects with public variables are lighter than having properties (can’t find the link).