title: Is there any benefit to declaring a private property with a getter and setter?
body: <p>I am reviewing another developer's code and he has written a lot of code for class level variables that is similar to the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>    /// &lt;summary&gt;
      /// how often to check for messages
      /// &lt;/summary&gt;
      private int CheckForMessagesMilliSeconds { get; set; }
  
      /// &lt;summary&gt;
      /// application path
      /// &lt;/summary&gt;
      private string AppPath { get; set; }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Doesn't coding this way add unnecessary overhead since the variable is private?</p>
  
  <p>Am I not considering a situation where this pattern of coding is required for private variables?</p>