Design and Architecture

CodingYoshi wrote:

When should a class access its own data members through a property rather than directly access them?

Brady Kelly wrote:

When your property methods contain logic that maintains some other value when the property changes. The alternative is to duplicate that logic ( [Unsure] ) wherever you directly change the property value.

Netblue wrote:

VisualSVN

CodingYoshi wrote:

However, I also know that all objects are passed by reference.

Dim values(10) As Integer

int[] values = new int[10];

using System;
class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        int[] values = { 1, 2, 3 };
        TestMethod(values);
        Console.WriteLine("{0}, {1}, {2}", values[0], values[1], values[2]);
    }

    static void TestMethod(int[] values)
    {
        int[] newArray = new int[] { 4, 5, 6 };
        values = newArray;
    }
}

static void TestMethod(int[] values)
{
    values[0] = 4;
    values[1] = 5;
    values[2] = 6;
}

CodingYoshi wrote:

when arguments are passed byVal it hinders performance since a copy needs to be made

CodingYoshi wrote:

If a method only needs to read an argument but does not need to modify it, does it make sense to send it byref?