Question

I’m currently tempted to write the following:

public class Class1() 
{
    public Class1() 
    {
        MyProperty = new Class2(this);
    }

    public Class2 MyProperty { get; private set; }
}

public class Class2() 
{
    public Class2(Class1 class1) 
    {
        ParentClass1 = class1;
    }

    public Class1 ParentClass1 { get; set; }
}

Is passing “this” as an argument a sign of a design problem? What would be a better approach?

Answer 1

No, there’s no fundamental design problem with passing this. Obviously, this can be misused (creating coupling that’s too tight by having a related class depend on values stored in your instance when values of its own would be called for, for example), but there’s no general problem with it.