Performance
Performance of delegates used to be much slower than a virtual or interface method call (6 to 8 times slower in Microsoft's 2003 benchmarks), but, since the .NET 2.0 CLR in 2005, it is about the same as interface calls. This means there is a small added overhead compared to direct method invocations.
There are very stringent rules on the construction of delegate classes. These rules permit optimizing compilers a great deal of leeway when optimizing delegates while ensuring type safety.
Delegates are a variation of closures.
Read more about this topic: Delegate (.NET)
Famous quotes containing the word performance:
“So long as the source of our identity is external—vested in how others judge our performance at work, or how others judge our children’s performance, or how much money we make—we will find ourselves hopelessly flawed, forever short of the ideal.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The way to go to the circus, however, is with someone who has seen perhaps one theatrical performance before in his life and that in the High School hall.... The scales of sophistication are struck from your eyes and you see in the circus a gathering of men and women who are able to do things as a matter of course which you couldn’t do if your life depended on it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)