What is the modern analogue for a two-dimensional string array?

Question

I'm refactoring some legacy code that uses a 2D string array:

/// <summary>Array of valid server messages</summary>
private static string[,] serverRsp =
{
    {"JOIN",            "RSP" }, 
    {"SETTING",     "RSP" }, 
    . . .

I want to modernize this, but don't know if I should use a Dictionary, a List of list of string, or something else. Is there a standard correlation between the "olden" way and the golden way (legacy vs. refactored)?

IWBN (it would be nice) if there was a chart somewhere that showed the olden vs. the golden for data types and structures, etc.

Answer 1

[,] is not an "old" datastructure, and hopefully will never become. Keep using it whenever appropriate.

For example:

1. just in this case have a List<List<T>> is much more confusing then having simple 2 dimensional array.

2. It's lighter then List<T>in terms of memory consumption (at least from my measurements).

In short: if there is no any real reason, or new requirement to change it, like make it faster O(1) access data structure key-value store (for non index, hence key like, fast access), do not change it. It is clear and it is readable.