Automatic Properties in C#

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Automatic Properties in C# - A Critique: improve my => 'code'
In the latest release of Orcas, one of the new features provided is "Automatic Properties" which allows developers to use a shorthand like the following:

    public class Person {

        public string FirstName {
            get; set;
        }

        public string LastName {
            get; set;
        }

        public int Age {
            get; set;
        }
    }

and the compiler knows to interpret this as

    public class Person {

        private string _firstName;
        private string _lastName;
        private int _age;

        public string FirstName {

            get {
                return _firstName;
            }
            set {
                _firstName = value;
            }
        }

        public string LastName {

            get {
                return _lastName;
            }
            set {
                _lastName = value;
            }
        }

        public int Age {

            get {
                return _age;
            }
            set {
                _age = value;
            }
        }
    }

Prima facie, this looks like a good thing. The developer is typing less code, and still has hooks in property accessors to perform validation, or needed side effects from value changes.

But I have a few problems with this shorthand.

Criticism 1

Why is this shorthand needed when there is a snippet (prop) that provides full property accessors, with better hooks for inserting custom actions like validation?

Criticism 2

I think that the shorthand looks too much like the signature of a method normally found in an interface, not a class. The only difference appears to be an access modifier. So I find the shorthand syntax is confusing...

What do you think?

Jonathan Starr; posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 8:00 PM Print

Comments

# re: Automatic Properties in C# - A Critique: Marcus; 1/16/2008 4:15 AM; As http://geekswithblogs.net/robp/archive/2008/01/14/another-reason-to-avoid-simple-properties.aspx point's out you can't debug this 'auto-props'. Which is really a pitty!

Personally I like the snippet way more.

# re: Automatic Properties in C# - A Critique: Carl; 1/16/2008 8:10 AM; Yup, another vote here for the snippet or you could use the refactor menu option:

private string m_AProperty;

Press Ctrl+R,E at the end of this line and you get:

private string m_AProperty;

public string AProperty
{
get { return m_AProperty; }
set { m_AProperty = value; }
}

A lot quicker than typing the stuff for the automatic properties and it's more future proof - like you said, when you want to add validation you're gonna need to type the whole lot out anyway.

Does anyone know of a valid reason for automatic properties even existing - I'm sure there must be one. MS aren't the best at implementing features that are universally requested, so I can't see them going to the trouble of implementing one that isn't.

# re: Automatic Properties in C# - A Critique: Jay Glynn; 1/16/2008 8:26 AM; automatic properties, type inference, etc etc were all included to make what LINQ can do much easier and in some cases even possible. hey were exposed because it was felt that they could be handy was of accomplishing certain tasks that otherwise would be difficult. It was never intended that you use automatic properties all the time, only when the situation called for it.

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News: Jonathan Starr is a developer in Saint Louis, MO. He holds an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School and earned his MCSD from Microsoft.

All statements in this blog are personal opinions and do not reflect the opinions of his employer.

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