title: Why must someone be subscribed for an event to occur?
body: <p>Some text before the code so that the question summary isn't mangled.</p>
  
  <pre><code>class Tree
  {
      public event EventHandler MadeSound;
  
      public void Fall() { MadeSound(this, new EventArgs()); }
  
      static void Main(string[] args)
      {
          Tree oaky = new Tree();
          oaky.Fall();
      }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I haven't used events much in C#, but the fact that this would cause a NullRefEx seems weird. The EventHandler reference is considered null because it currently has no subsribers - but that doesn't mean that the event hasn't occurred, does it?</p>
  
  <p>EventHandlers are differentiated from standard delegates by the <strong>event</strong> keyword. Why didn't the language designers set them up to fire silently in to the void when they have no subscribers? (I gather you can do this manually by explicitly adding an empty delegate).</p>