C#, Generic, VS2008: Struct versa Class

In principle, the arguments for creating generic structs rather than generic classes are just the same as for their non-generic counterparts.

Ideally, a struct should have a small memory footprint - preferably no more than 16 bytes - so that the cost of copying it between memory locations is not too high. It is also best used for entities which are frequently created and disposed of because structs are not subject to garbage collection and so this reduces pressure on the GC.

As generics are often used for collections, these criteria usually rule out using structs - in fact there are no structs in the System.Collections.Generic namespace.

However, there are one or two generic structs in the .NET Framework, notably System.Nullable for nullable types which are value types which, as well as their normal range of values, can have no value. These, of course, enjoy special syntax in C#. 

The DataGridView can bind to objects which implement various non-generic interfaces including IList and IBindingList. However, typically, generic classes implement the non-generic as well as the generic versions of these interfaces so that isn't usually a problem.

For more details of the binding model, see:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.datagridview.datasource.aspx