C# constructor initializing properties instead of fields?

Let's say that you have to use an constructor to initialize some fields... 

class Foo
{
    private int price;
    public Foo(int price)
    {
        this.price = price;
    }
}

I know that usually the constructor initializes some fields but what's the difference if I initialize properties with it. For example 

class Foo
{
    private int price { get; set; }
    public Foo(int price)
    {
        this.price = price;
    }
}

The code seems to work the same but my question is if this is good practice and should I do it ?

Jon Skeet
people
quotationmark

It's fine for a constructor to initialize properties, but it's rarely useful to have private automatically-implemented properties. I'd always use properties rather than fields for non-private state (whether those properties are automatically implemented or not) and private properties make sense when they're non-trivial, e.g. performing validation or some other computation. But I'd only turn a private field into a private automatically-implemented property if I wanted it for something like a reflection-based library that only understood properties.

people

See more on this question at Stackoverflow