Question

Possible Duplicate:
Difference between Property and Field in C# .NET 3.5+

Sample code:

public struct State
{
    private readonly byte state;

    private State (byte pState)
    {
        state = pState;
    }

    // property...

    public static State StateOne
    {
        get
        {
            return new State (1);
        }
    }

    // or...

    public static readonly State StateOne = new State (1);
}

Should I use properties or fields? Performance doesnt matter in this example.

Answer 1

In my opinion, it’s fields because it’s the minimum you need and it’s probably more readable. But realistically there’s no actual difference in such a trivial case presented as in this struct given the pass-by-value semantics.

In particular – the argument for the property, with a cached local field (as on another answer here)) is completely null and void on the grounds of reference equality because, by their very definition, value types can never be reference-equal.