Properties in C# were unnecessarily verbose when exposing an internal field in a future-proof way¹.

C# 3.0 provides a more concise syntax to achieve the common use cases where a property simply maps to an private field.

Code

Now

class Contact
{
    public Guid Id { get; private set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

Before

class Contact
{
    private Guid id;
    private string name;

    public Guid Id
    {
        get { return id; }
    }

    public string Name
    {
        get { return name; }
        set { name = value; }
    }
}

Notes

• Auto-implemented properties don't allow for change-notification hooks like INotifyPropertyChange
• Read-only auto-implemented properties can't have defaults until Auto property initializers ^{C# 6.0}

¹ Exposing a field in a public type and changing it to a property later is a binary breaking change.

More information

• .NET Framework Design Guidelines on Properties