WriteOnly Property or Method?

Question

Is there a particular scenario where a WriteOnly property makes more sense then a method? The method approach feels much more natural to me.

What is the right approach?

Using Properties:

Public WriteOnly Property MyProperty As String
   Set(ByVal value as String)
      m_myField = value
   End Set
End Property

public string MyProperty
{
   set{ m_myField = value;}
}

Using Methods:

Public Sub SetMyProperty(ByVal value as String)
   m_myField = value
End Sub

public void SetMyProperty(string value)
{
   m_myField = value;
}

EDIT Just to clarify I am referring to "WriteOnly" properties.

Answer 1

I think a property indicates something that can be read-only or read/write. The behaviour of a write-only property is not obvious so I avoid creating them.

As an example, setting a list of values in a drop-down on a view and accessing the selected item:

public interface IWidgetSelector
{
  void SetAvailableWidgets(string[] widgets);

  string SelectedWidget { get; set; }
}

Makes more sense than:

public interface IWidgetSelector
{
  string[] AvailableWidgets { set; }

  string SelectedWidget { get; set; }
}

Answer 2

For what it's worth, the Microsoft Framework Design Guidelines (as embodied in their FxCop tool) discourage Write-Only Properties and flag their presence as an API design issue, due to the unintuitiveness of that approach.