Public properties vs variables?

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Qucik question: In all the tutorials I see, all the scripts are made with public variables and no one uses properties. Is there a particular reason for that?

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Answer by Jamora · Aug 02, 2013 at 03:58 AM

I think there is.

Most new Unity users want to make things happen, they don't necessary want to know why they happen or how to do it effectively. Because of this. they probably won't care about encapsulating data, maintainable code or any other good programming practice either. I'd imagine most tutorial writers are either in the mindset "I'll just show them, in as few lines of code as possible, how to make this happen." or don't know any better themselves.

So, to answer your question, using public variables is just lazy programming, for the points mentioned above. < Rhetoric question > But then again, why write 4 lines of code when you could just write 1 for the same functionality? < /Rhetoric question >

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Andrew-Le · Jan 03, 2017 at 03:35 AM 0

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Sorry for digging this up xD but i really want to know when you use properties instead of variables(lazy things) !!

please i have seen many topic about c# which they answered different between them !!

but i really need some realistic case !! please answer me if u got this ^^ ty sry for my bad english !!

Answer 2

Answer by EndlessArray · Aug 02, 2013 at 03:54 PM

So, I just tested a random hunch, and it turns out it has more to do with how the unity editor works and less with lazy programming. Public variables are visible in the editor and it's values can be set from there. public properties are not shown in the editor.

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robhuhn · Aug 02, 2013 at 04:09 PM 2

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In that case you would serialize the field to make it visible in the inspector:

 [SerializeField]
 private int myInt = 3;
     
 public int MyInt {
     get {
         return this.myInt;
     }
     set {
         myInt = value;
     }
 }

MaDDoX robhuhn · Oct 11, 2015 at 05:43 PM 0

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But that would completely defeat the purpose of properties, firing up "onChanged", "onRead" events and encapsulating the data.. You can always do a custom editor for properties, but ppl usually don't bother unless they need buttons and stuff.

Statement MaDDoX · Oct 11, 2015 at 05:53 PM 0

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Well, you could write your own property drawer that monitor the field and respond to inspector changes. Though I find it rare to respond to changed values at edit-time.

But in general I don't see having public fields for reference binding a big problem. I try to design my code to not rely so much on them. In fact, I would be thrilled to see a serious discussion in the forums showing cases where having public fields being a concrete problem, in Unity, specifically.

Public properties vs variables?

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