Automatic Properties

I've been exploring some of the new language features that will be available in the coming version of .Net.  I continue to see things that look like they have been borrowed from dynamic languages.  Another to add to the list is automatic properties.  In C#, you'll be able to define properties like this.

public string FirstName { get; set;}

This is functionally equivalent to the following:

private string _FirstName;
public string FirstName
{
    get
    {
        return _FirstName;
    }
    set
    {
        _FirstName = value;
    }
}

This will be a real timesaver for those not using a tool such as CodeRush where creating he above block of code is reduced to three keystrokes (ps<space>) and then typing in the name of the property. 

Now, look at how the equivalent is accomplished in Ruby.

attr_accessor: FirstName

Instead of specifying get; and set;, you specify attr_writer for a write-only property and attr_reader for read-only.