Reflection

C# offers robust reflection capabilities through the System.Reflection namespace, allowing developers to inspect metadata about types at runtime, such as properties, methods, fields, and their attributes. Reflection in C# is strongly integrated into the language and type system, enabling operations like dynamic method invocation, creating instances of types, and accessing private members, all while maintaining type safety. This allows for powerful scenarios such as dependency injection, serialization, and building flexible, reusable frameworks. Reflection in C# also works seamlessly with generics and provides detailed access to the structure of objects and assemblies, making it a critical tool in advanced scenarios.

In contrast, TypeScript/JavaScript provides some limited reflection capabilities, but they are not as deeply integrated into the language. JavaScript can inspect objects using features like typeof, instanceof, or Object.getOwnPropertyNames(), but it lacks the comprehensive type introspection found in C#. TypeScript adds some support for type reflection during development through type annotations and the typeof operator, but this is mainly for compile-time type checking, not runtime introspection. To achieve more advanced reflection-like functionality, such as schema validation or dynamically interacting with object properties, developers often rely on third-party libraries (like class-transformer, class-validator, or reflect-metadata). Additionally, TypeScript’s type system doesn’t exist at runtime, so true runtime type introspection requires extra effort, including manual schema definitions or metadata decorators, making it less seamless than C#'s built-in reflection tools.

Basics

👋🏼 Interested in contributing?