IEnumerable as return type

Question

Is there a problem with using IEnumerable as a return type? FxCop complains about returning List (it advises returning Coll

Answer 1

Just because you say you're returning IEnumerable doesn't mean you can't return a List. The idea is to reduce unneeded coupling. All that the caller should care about is getting a list of things, rather than the exact type of collection used to contain that list. If you have something that's backed by an array, then getting something like Count is going to be fast anyway.