Does initialization of local variable with null impacts performance?

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2005/07/for-best-results-dont-initialize-variables.html

To summarize from the article, after running various benchmarks, initializing an object to a value (either as part of a definition, in the class' constructor, or as part of an initialization method) can be anywhere from roughly 10-35% slower on .NET 1.1 and 2.0. Newer compilers may optimize away initialization on definition. The article closes by recommending to avoid initialization as a general rule.

It is slightly slower, as Jon.Stromer.Galley's link points out. But the difference is amazingly small; likely on the order of nanoseconds. At that level, the overhead from using a high-level language like C# dwarfs any performance difference. If performance is that much of an issue, you may as well be coding in C or ASM or something.

The value of writing clear code (whatever that means to you) will far outweigh the 0.00001ms performance increase in terms of cost vs. benefit. That's why C# and other high-level languages exist in the first place.

I get that this is probably meant as an academic question, and I don't discount the value of understanding the internals of the CLR. But in this case, it just seems like the wrong thing to focus on.