Bits of .NET

Checking if null before initializing is verbose. Use ??= operator for clean lazy initialization.

Old Verbose Way:

private List _cache;

public List GetCache()
{
    if (_cache == null)
    {
        _cache = new List();
    }
    return _cache;
}

Clean Way:

private List _cache;

public List GetCache()
{
    _cache ??= new List();
    return _cache;
}

// If _cache is null, assign new List
// If _cache already has value, do nothing

More Examples:

// Initialize config on first access
_config ??= LoadConfiguration();

// Set default if null
username ??= "Guest";

// Dictionary key initialization
dict[key] ??= new List();