Why are all-caps constant considered bad coding style? [closed]

Answer 1

The only compelling reason to me is consistency in style. For non-.NET languages like Java / C++, all-caps constants are certainly acceptable.

For C#, the standard is to use PascalCase, as noted here: C# naming convention for constants?

Answer 2

IT ALSO MAKES THE CODE HARDER TO READ

Answer 3

Constants and CONSTANTS might differ. Use all-caps only when dealing with preprocessor, that being said for example in C++ it's recommended to avoid that and use const variable or constexpr which would be named just like any other variables (maybe with some prefix or something to make it clear that it's a constant but...).

Answer 4

Screaming is fine. In the case of the constant it tells the reader

DONT THINK ABOUT CHANGING ME LATER IN CODE

But I understand if soft programmers get offended.

Answer 5

FLIP THE QUESTION, WHY USE ALL CAPS?

Answer 6

Some people consider ALL CAPS to be "old school". Consider the difference between:

const string ErrorMessage = "Some error message.";

and

const string ERROR_MESSAGE = "Some error message.";

Both are completely usable, but the ALL CAPS version is less used by newer developers, such as the ones that started out with .NET.

I consider it a bad coding style if your team is using a different style. Other than that, I don't really care. At least when I see ALL CAPS in some shared code, I can guess that it's a constant.