const

[Bruno Medeiros]

Bill Baxter wrote:
> 
> And while on the subject of "readonly", am I misreading this or is 
> Walter basically the *only* one who thinks this sounds like it means 
> "does not change ever".  I think if you did a study asking programmers 
> to rank the unchanging-ness of various const words, you'd get a result 
> with "readonly" coming out much weaker than "constant".  The fact that 
> all the words mean effectively the same thing does not mean that 
> everyone perceives the nuances in the same way.  And if an overwhelming 
> majority perceive "readonly" to have weaker meaning than "constant" or 
> "invariant" it seems reasonable to choose that or some variation of it 
> as the word that means the weaker form.
> 
> --bb

Yes! Exactly what I was about to say! My opinion, (and I'm sure, the 
opinion of many if not all of my programmer friends/colleagues, if I 
were to ask them) it that 'readonly' is a much weaker meaning than the 
other words. So the idea that "const, readonly, invariant, and immutable 
all mean exactly the same thing." is really just the opinion of Walter 
and a few either imaginary (like Don mentioned) or obsolete people.


-- 
Bruno Medeiros - Software Developer, MSc. in CS/E graduate
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D