Why should I use List<T> over IEnumerable<T>?

Posted by Rowan Freeman on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by Rowan Freeman
Published on 2013-04-06T03:15:39Z Indexed on 2013/11/03 22:17 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 324

Filed under:

.NET

|

programming-practices

|

asp.net-mvc

|

entity-framework

In my ASP.net MVC4 web application I use IEnumerables, trying to follow the mantra to program to the interface, not the implementation.

Return IEnumerable(Of Student)

vs

Return New List(Of Student)

People are telling me to use List and not IEnumerable, because lists force the query to be executed and IEumerable does not.

Is this really best practice? Is there any alternative? I feel strange using concrete objects where an interface could be used. Is my strange feeling justified?

© Programmers or respective owner

Related posts about .NET

Apt-Get Update: failure to fetch; can't connect to any sources

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I realize there are dozens of "apt-get update: failure to fetch" questions (I read through all I could find), but my present circumstance is unique to 12.04 and it affects all sources; not just launchpad. Additionally, I've tried several different servers in Europe and the U.S. as well as the "main… >>> More
12.04: Apt-Get Update: failure to fetch; can't connect to any sources

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I realize there are dozens of "apt-get update: failure to fetch" questions (I read through all I could find), but my present circumstance is unique to 12.04 and it affects all sources; not just launchpad. Additionally, I've tried several different servers in Europe and the U.S. as well as the "main… >>> More
What's New in ASP.NET 4

as seen on Geeks with Blogs - Search for 'Geeks with Blogs'
The .NET Framework version 4 includes enhancements for ASP.NET 4 in targeted areas. Visual Studio 2010 and Microsoft Visual Web Developer Express also include enhancements and new features for improved Web development. This document provides an overview of many of the new features that are included… >>> More
.NET Reflector 6, .NET Reflector Pro, TestDriven.NET, .NET 4.0 and Mono

as seen on Simple Talk - Search for 'Simple Talk'
By now you may well have noticed that .NET Reflector 6 and .NET Reflector Pro are out in the wild. The official launch happened today, although we actually put the software out last Thursday as part of a phased release plan to ensure that everything went smoothly today which, so far, it seems to have… >>> More
Redmine on Apache2 with Passenger issue

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I installed Redmine and run it in Apache2 with the Passenger module. Apache2 boots, Passenger module gets loaded and the Redmine welcome page is shown, however when trying to login or navigate to other parts of the Redmine site, the browser keeps loading and loading and loading forever, although the… >>> More

Related posts about programming-practices

programming practices starting

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I have taken my major as computer science and Engineering and I am really confused at this moment. My first course was about learning C and C++ and I learned the basics of those. Now I am really confused what to do next. Some says I should practice algorithms and do contests in ACM-ICPC for now… >>> More
Are `break` and `continue` bad programming practices?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
My boss keeps mentioning nonchalantly that bad programmers use break and continue in loops. I use them all the time because they make sense; let me show you the inspiration: function verify(object) { if (object->value < 0) return false; if (object->value > object->max_value)… >>> More
Why is C++ backward compatibility important / necessary?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
As far as understand it is a well-established opinion within the C++ community that C is an obsolete language that was useful 20 years ago but cannot support many modern good programming practices, or even encourages bad practices; certain features that were typical of C++ (C with classes) during… >>> More
Any task-control algorithms programming practices?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi, I was just wondering if there's any field which concerns the task-control programming (or at least that's the way I call it). For a better explanation of task-control consider the following scenario: An application (master-thread) waits for a command - which might be a particular action or… >>> More
displaying python's autodoc to the user (python 3.3)

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I'm writing a simple command line math game, and I'm using python's autodoc for my math algorithms to help me remember, for example, what a proth number is while i'm writing the algorithm, but later on I'll want to tell that information to the user as well, so they'll know what the answer was. So… >>> More