C# protected property or field

Question

Do you think it\'s better to always make protected class members an auto-implemented protected property to keep isolation or make it protected field is enough?

Answer 1

The suggested practice is to make it a property. The signature changes depending on whether it's a field or a property, which can cause problems if you're crossing assemblies. If you make it a property to begin with, you'll never have this problem. (often later you want to add logic when the property is read or written.)

In C#, auto-implementing the property is so easy, there's no reason not to do it.

Also, it makes things more clear. If it is really meant to be used by the outside world as part of the functioning of the object, make it a property. Otherwise, a future programmer might wonder if you made a field protected instead of private by accident.