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by _getify
3931 days ago
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> I know that after reading a const line I don't have to check if someone rebinds this name before each use site -- it's impossible. This turns out to be almost useless information for most of us, since the real problem is not re-assignment, but mutation of the value (in the case of non-primitives). `const x = 2` feels great emotionally, but `const x = [2]` has the feeling of safety without any of the guarantee. This is a classic case (quoted from Crockford regularly) of a utility that it sometimes useful and sometimes harmful (aka not useful), and there's a better option (`let`), so the better option should generally be preferred. I only use `const` (refactor from `let`) when a piece of code is reasonably complete and I'm pretty sure re-assignment will not ever be appropriate. Guessing at that before writing the code is a premature optimization. And guessing wrongly and having to refactor back to `let` later is more risky. |
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Const is perfectly sensible with references to mutable objects too. The latter guarantees that x will always point to the same mutable array. If you pass a reference to the x array to a function which needs to mutate that specific array or observe it for changes, then it may be important that x is never rebound to a different array. Consider the following code: