Is .NET Reflection Worth the Performance Cost?

Pitfalls of .NET Reflection: Evaluating Performance Costs

Reflection in .NET is a powerful tool that allows code to inspect and manipulate itself at runtime. However, concerns have been raised about its potential shortcomings, especially in terms of performance.

To understand the impact of reflection, one must delve into actual usage and measurements. The developers have made some observations:

• Significant slowdown: Empirically, reflection operations have been shown to significantly reduce performance. According to Jeff Richter's famous presentation "Performance of Everyday Things", calling a method through reflection can be about 1000 times slower than calling it directly.
• Delegation Optimization: As a workaround, Richter recommends using only one reflection to identify the target method. The method can then be assigned to a delegate, which can then be called repeatedly without incurring the performance overhead associated with reflection.

By understanding these performance impacts, developers can make informed decisions about using reflection. While reflections can be beneficial in certain scenarios, their performance costs should be carefully considered. In .NET applications, striking a balance between flexibility and efficiency is critical to avoid unnecessary performance bottlenecks.

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