# Some c# questions :)

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/some-c-questions/216903>\
**Category:** programming\
**Created:** [February 21, 2007, 2:46pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/some-c-questions/216903 "2007-02-21T14:46:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![aaarrrggh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@aaarrrggh](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/aaarrrggh)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2007, 2:46pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/some-c-questions/216903/1 "2007-02-21T14:46:28Z")

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Hello there. This is my first post on this forum. You lot seem like a friendly bunch, so I  
thought I’d have a go at asking you a few questions about c#, if that’s ok

Just for a bit of context - I’ve been teaching myself using online tutorials and a few  
books, but there are a few things that I seem to be having a little trouble understanding.  
In some places I’m in a position where I think I could actually write code that would work,  
but I’m frustrated in that I feel like I don’t fully understand what is going on behind the  
scenes.

I’m currently reading the book “Learning c#, 2nd edition”, by O’Reilly. For the most part  
it’s been useful, but there are some things I’m unclear on.

Here’s a few:

## Inheritence

When inheriting from a base class, I don’t fully understand the difference between using  
virtual methods and the override keyword, and in using the ‘new’ keyword to ‘hide’ the base  
method. The book uses the term ‘hide’, but I find it unclear as to what this means.  
I understand that polymorphism only works using virtual methods and the override keyword,  
but I don’t quite understand why this is.

There’s something that’s always bugged me too. Might seem like a silly question to a more  
experienced user, but seeing as I don’t know the answer, I thought I’d ask it anyway.

I (kinda) understand the differences between value types and reference types. I understand  
for example, that if you do this:

Dog Milo = new Dog();  
Milo.weight = 5;

Dog Fido = Milo();  
Fido.Weight = 10;

That Milo.Weight will now = 10, as it’s only actually referencing the object, not storing  
the value of the object itself. However, there’s still one or two things I don’t quite  
understand.

One is this: why do value types still have methods and properties? I know they inherit from  
Object, but why then do they remain value types? If int inherits from Object, why is it not  
a reference type? I’ve got a feeling this is to do with boxing, but I didn’t fully  
understand boxing to be honest…

One final thing for now - looking at the example above, I wanted to ask something else.

If we split this line: Dog Milo = new Dog(); into two seperate lines for a moment (and  
ignoring the fact that this might cause a compiler error or whatever), can anybody tell me  
if I’m right in thinking that this:

Dog Milo  
creates a reference in itself? I was thinking, if I’m right, that the ‘Dog Milo’ part creates a reference object (I hope I’m right here), and that the ‘new Dog();’ element then creates the dog object, which is then referenced by Milo. The reason I’m asking this is because I got really confused by the section on interfaces in the book I’m reading, particularly when it showed you how to cast to an interface.

Anyway, I have more questions, but thought I’d ask these first. I’d really appreciate it if anybody could help me. I know I’ve practically written an essay here, but these are things that I’m finding frustrating, as it seems hard to find a direct explanation for some of these things.  
Hope some of you guys can help 🙂  
Thanks!