C# reflection pros and cons

Copy from https://www.erikzhou.com/blogs/reflection_in_csharp/

 

Pros and Cons of Reflection
Reflection is a powerful tool, but it comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Let’s explore the pros and cons of using reflection in C#.

Pros
Dynamic behavior: Reflection enables you to create dynamic, flexible, and extensible applications by allowing you to inspect and interact with types, objects, and assemblies at runtime.
Code analysis: Reflection can be used to analyze code during runtime, enabling the development of tools like code generators, serializers, and dependency injection frameworks.
Plug-in architectures: Reflection allows you to create plugin-based systems, where new functionality can be added by simply dropping in assemblies without recompiling the main application.
Cons
Performance overhead: Reflection can introduce performance overhead, as it requires additional processing to inspect and interact with metadata. This can be especially impactful when invoking methods or accessing properties, which may be significantly slower than direct calls.
Security: Reflection can potentially expose sensitive information about your application’s internal implementation, making it more susceptible to security vulnerabilities or reverse engineering.
Maintainability: Using reflection can result in code that is more difficult to maintain, as the relationships between types and members may not be obvious at compile time. This also means no intellisense since everything is done in runtime.
Conclusion
Reflection is a feature in C# that enables you to look at and interact with the metadata of types, objects, and assemblies during runtime. This allows you to create dynamic, flexible, and extensible applications, as well as perform tasks like analysis and serialization.

Despite its many advantages, reflection also comes with many downsides, including performance overhead, security concerns, and reduced maintainability. It’s important to carefully consider the pros and cons of using reflection in your C#