Not understanding the wiki with regards to Const

[JockoDundee]

Came across this in the coding practices wiki:

The first example is not recommended apparently because you should choose “values that won’t change regardless of the invocation of the program.”

Why is this important?

Isn’t it enough that the Const won’t change during the lifetime of the variable?  

 

 

[JLogan3o13]

It is basically stating that, as the first example's handle can change, calling it a Const in the traditional sense is a misnomer. And thus, marking it as a Const in your script brings little to no value. As opposed to something that will definitely never change, regardless of the PC you run it on, like the second example.

[Nine]

I think it is more of a question of understanding the code you have programmed for other ppl looking at it, or in the somehow far future for yourself.  Stating whatever way of a Const, says that it should not be modified in any way within the script.  I encourage usage of all the restrictions given in AutoIt to ensure proper usage of the variable definition.

[JockoDundee]

1 hour ago, JLogan3o13 said:

And thus, marking it as a Const in your script brings little to no value.

But isn’t the “value” of declaring something Const the immutability of the variable during execution?

If the GUI is created once during the program, why not declare it Const?  Its easy enough to accidentally set something to “” thru a typo, or put it on the left hand side of an expression instead of the right.  These, possibly hard to debug, errors are stopped.

I declare everything Const that I don’t expect to change during execution.

Also what say you about the recommended usage in functions of Const By Ref when passing read only args?  Are those only for arrays of literals?

2 hours ago, JLogan3o13 said:

As opposed to something that will definitely never change, regardless of the PC you run it on, like the second example.

Since the second example is actually something that could change, (even during execution), it may not be the best counter example.  Perhaps Const $fPI=3.141592654 might be better.

 

 

[JockoDundee]

46 minutes ago, Nine said:

I think it is more of a question of understanding the code you have programmed for other ppl looking at it, or in the somehow far future for yourself.

That’s a fair point.  And since, IMHO, the common understanding of Const is something that doesn’t change during execution, I think my usage is defensible.

[jchd]

1 minute ago, JockoDundee said:

I think my usage is defensible.

100%

[JLogan3o13]

3 hours ago, JockoDundee said:

Since the second example is actually something that could change, (even during execution), it may not be the best counter example.  Perhaps Const $fPI=3.141592654 might be better.

I agree wholeheartedly the second example is not one I would use. Give me the speed of light or something a true constant. I didn't write that entry, however

Edited October 29, 2020 by JLogan3o13

[water]

I added some text to the example and replaced $iMyAge with $fPi as recommended