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What is the difference between ArrayList and List<> in C#?
Is it only that List<> has a type while ArrayList doesn't?
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There is not much difference in this. The only difference is, you are creating a reference of the parent interface in the first one and a reference of the class which implements the List (i.e) the ArrayList class in the second.
C# ArrayList is a non-generic collection. The ArrayList class represents an array list and it can contain elements of any data types. The ArrayList class is defined in the System. Collections namespace.
Yes, pretty much. List<T> is a generic class. It supports storing values of a specific type without casting to or from object (which would have incurred boxing/unboxing overhead when T is a value type in the ArrayList case). ArrayList simply stores object references. As a generic collection, List<T> implements the generic IEnumerable<T> interface and can be used easily in LINQ (without requiring any Cast or OfType call).
ArrayList belongs to the days that C# didn't have generics. It's deprecated in favor of List<T>. You shouldn't use ArrayList in new code that targets .NET >= 2.0 unless you have to interface with an old API that uses it.
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