Constant abuse?

user_70417 0
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I have run across a bunch of code in a few C# projects that have the following constants: 

    const int ZERO_RECORDS = 0;
    const int FIRST_ROW = 0;
    const int DEFAULT_INDEX = 0;
    const int STRINGS_ARE_EQUAL = 0;

Has anyone ever seen anything like this? Is there any way to rationalize using constants to represent language constructs? IE: C#'s first index in an array is at position 0. I would think that if a developer needs to depend on a constant to tell them that the language is 0 based, there is a bigger issue at hand.

The most common usage of these constants is in handling Data Tables or within 'for' loops.

Am I out of place thinking these are a code smell? I feel that these aren't a whole lot better than:

const int ZERO = 0;
const string A = "A";
coding-style c#
17 Answers

It's all right to use constants to represent abstract values, but quite another to represent constructs in your own language.

const int FIRST_ROW = 0 doesn't make sense.

const int MINIMUM_WIDGET_COUNT = 0 makes more sense.

The presumption that you should follow a coding standard makes sense. (That is, coding standards are presumptively correct within an organization.) Slavishly following it when the presumption isn't met doesn't make sense.

So I agree with the earlier posters that some of the smelly constants probably resulted from following a coding standard ("no magic numbers") to the letter without exception. That's the problem here.

user_14863140
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