Why is Action/Func better than a regular Method in .Net?

Question

I much prefer using an Action or a Func if I need a quick reusable piece of code, however others on my team don't like them or understand them.
At the moment my only real argument is about preference and more up to date code practices, but those are just bad arguments.

Why is it better to do this:

Action<FormView,String> hideControl = (form,name) => {
    var button = form.GetControl<Button>(name);
    if (button != null)
        button.Visible = false;
}

than:

public static void HideControl<T>(this FormView form, string name) where T : Control
{
    var button = form.GetControl<Button>(name);
    if (button != null)
        button.Visible = false;
}

?

Can anyone give me solid concrete arguments/examples?

Answer 1

There are two sides to your question: style and performance.

For code style, using delegates makes things a little messy. There is no function name associated with the body of code (anonymous method), argument types are inferred, and when overused this can lead to large function blocks containing lots of smaller independent chunks of code in delegates. It's not pretty to look at, it can be hard to figure out what the code is actually doing, and it's hard to find what you're looking for.

For performance, delegates introduce an indirection that is not as fast to execute as a plain old method. The difference is small, but when used to excess it could become noticeable.

Any tool has appropriate and excessive uses. It's appropriate to use Action or Func for a callback parameter when you want to pass a callback routine into a function. Using Action or Func as a replacement for declaring functions in general is a misuse, IMO.

Answer 2

The short answer is that, in general, it is not better. I agree with your team mates.

I don't think your question is the right one. Rather than asking why is it better (believe me it is not in most cases), you might ask WHEN is it better.

Now, there are of course times where they are extremely useful, like in LINQ when methods take in a Func, writing a quick lambda is great.

This is far more readable and maintainable:

var myQuery = Customers.Where(x => x.ID == 3).First();

than the alternative:

public bool FilterByID3(Customer cust)
{
  return cust.ID == 3;
}

    var myQuery = Customers.Where(FilterByID3).First();

In most other cases, it is much more readable/maintainable to use functions.