Question

Is there some internal difference between the C# syntactic sugar way of making properties:

public string FirstName { get; set; } 

and just making public variables like this:

public string LastName; 

I assume the first way is preferred and the second to be avoided. However, I often see this type of readonly property being used which is a form of the second type above:

public readonly string InternalCode; 

Is this a best-practice way to create readonly property?

using System;  namespace TestProps {     class Program     {         static void Main(string[] args)         {             Customer customer = new Customer();             customer.FirstName = 'Jim';             customer.LastName = 'Smith';             customer.Show();         }     }      class Customer     {         public string FirstName { get; set; } //prefered         public string LastName; //avoid         public readonly string InternalCode; //???          public Customer()         {             InternalCode = '234729834723984';         }          public void Show()         {             Console.WriteLine('{0}, {1} ({2})', LastName, FirstName, InternalCode);             Console.ReadLine();         }     } } 

Answer 1

Since he didn’t answer (yet) and no one else referenced this yet: There is a great article on this topic by Jon Skeet amending his book C# in depth (give credits to Jon):

Why Properties Matter