Public Properties and Private Members C#

Question

What are the benefits of only using public properties instead of using the public property to access a private variable?

For example

public int iMyInt { get; set; }

instead of

private int myint;
public int iMyInt { get { return myint; } set { myint = value; } }

Other than letting .NET manage the variable / memory underneath the property, what are the advantages (or disadvantages for that matter)?

Answer 1

Using automatic properties (the first example) requires less typing.

It is highly recommended to have only public properties and not public fields. Many properties are simple wrappers around private fields. Automatic properties save you the time and hassle of manually creating the property and backing field.

The actual code behind automatic and manual properties for the simple case you mentioned should be nearly identical.