Question

Is there any difference between the two pieces of code below? Or is the top just a short form of the bottom one?

public string Name { get; set; }

and

private string _Name;
public string Name
{
    get { return _Name; }
    set { _Name = value; }
}

Answer 1

The only difference (other than the fact you would have to do the initialization with “Default Name” in your class constructor) is that _Name will be visible within the class itself. There’s a risk that the class will internally reference _Name rather than Name, everything will work fine, and at some later point in time you’ll add some logic to Name that will not be called because you’re using _Name within the class.

Example:

private string _Name = "Default Name";
public string Name
{
   get { return _Name.Left(42); }  // Changed the getter
   set { _Name = value; }
}

void MyOtherMethod()
{
   string foo = _Name; // Referencing the private field accidentally instead of the public property.
   // Do something with foo
}