Productivity at the Cost of Efficiency

In this modern age of computer programming, there are many advanced features at our disposal. These are designed with elegance in mind and are put in place to allow programmers to be more productive. They are often meant to remove the need to know machine and system specifics so that programmers can focus on the higher level tasks at hand. What this analysis focuses on is examining what happens behind the scenes when using these advanced features. Performance for various new features of C# such as anonymous methods, reflection, and iterators were examined alongside more traditional programming styles in order to determine if these advanced features designed for productivity have any negative impacts on program efficiency. The outcome of this analysis is that these new features are highly beneficial and should be used whenever possible as they have a negligible effect on efficiency. Even when used haphazardly, these new features have proven to be just as efficient as standard programming methods. Advisors/Committee Members: Blake, Ben.