Pro C# 2010 and the .NET 4 Platform, Fifth Edition

8.1. Classes, Objects, and References

To frame the topics covered in this chapter, it is important to further clarify the distinction between classes, objects, and references. Recall that a class is nothing more than a blueprint that describes how an instance of this type will look and feel in memory. Classes, of course, are defined within a code file (which in C# takes a *.cs extension by convention). Consider a simple Car class defined within a new C# Console Application project named SimpleGC:

// Car.cs
public class Car
{
  public int CurrentSpeed {get; set;}
  public string PetName {get; set;}

  public Car(){}
  public Car(string name, int speed)
  {
    PetName = name;
    CurrentSpeed = speed;
  }

public override string ToString() { return string.Format("{0} ...