Unsafe isn't

I've noticed that many programmers seem to have an irrational fear of the "unsafe" keyword in C#. It's almost as though they are afraid that if they use it in their code then program will turn into a Frankenstiens Monster and leap opon them in their sleep.

Unsafe refers only to the fact that the code might reference unmanaged and hence non type-safe code. Not that one is taking a calculated risk by using it.

Personally, I only use unsafe where the highest performance is required and I don't want anything to intervene between my code and the bytes it's working on. In most of my puplicly available examples these days I use the Marshal class because it enables me to create code in C# which is readily translated to VB. This is of course just my lazy nature and not a fear of the evil that may befall me if I use that dreaded keyword.