The Benefits of Constants

Question

I understand one of the big deals about constants is that you don\'t have to go through and update code where that constant is used all over the place. Thats great, but let\'s s

Answer 1

As you point out, you may not gain any direct benefit from changing the unchanging variables into explicit constants. However, in analysing a program one check that is made is to look at the point of declaration of a variable to the point of reference of the variable. So metrics such as variables that are being accessed before declaration, or set and reset before reference etc can indicate probably bugs.

By explicitly declaring constants as constants the compiler and analysis tools know that you do not intend to reset the variable at any time.

This is also true for other developers that work with your code. They may inadvertently set a variable and you may not be aware of it. Declaring constants will avoid these types of errors.