Guid.NewGuid() vs. new Guid()
Guid.NewGuid()
creates a new UUID using an algorithm that is designed to make collisions very, very unlikely.
new Guid()
creates a UUID that is all-zeros.
Generally you would prefer the former, because that's the point of a UUID (unless you're receiving it from somewhere else of course).
There are cases where you do indeed want an all-zero UUID, but in this case Guid.Empty
or default(Guid)
is clearer about your intent, and there's less chance of someone reading it expecting a unique value had been created.
In all, new Guid()
isn't that useful due to this lack of clarity, but it's not possible to have a value-type that doesn't have a parameterless constructor that returns an all-zeros-and-nulls value.
Edit: Actually, it is possible to have a parameterless constructor on a value type that doesn't set everything to zero and null, but you can't do it in C#, and the rules about when it will be called and when there will just be an all-zero struct created are confusing, so it's not a good idea anyway.
new Guid()
makes an "empty" all-0 guid (00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 is not very useful).
Guid.NewGuid()
makes an actual guid with a unique value, what you probably want.