The VB.NET 'With' Statement - embrace or avoid?

Question

At work, I\'m frequently working on projects where numerous properties of certain objects have to be set during their construction or early during their lifetime. For the sa

Answer 1

Where it makes the code genuinely more readable, go for it. Where it makes it less readable, avoid it - in particular, I suggest you avoid nesting With statements.

C# 3.0 has this feature solely for object initialization:

var x = new Whatever { PropertyA=true, PropertyB="Inactive" };

This is not only pretty much required for LINQ, but it also makes sense in terms of where the syntax doesn't indicate a code smell. I usually find that when I'm performing many different operations on an object beyond its initial construction, those operations should be encapsulated as a single one on the object itself.

One note about your example - do you really need the "Me" at all? Why not just write:

PropertyA = True
PropertyB = "Inactive"

? Surely "Me" is implied in that case...