Hacker News Reader

Casey Muratori considers const a complete waste of time, so apparently that's a thing with some C/C++ programmers.

If you want to go by authority, instead of by the fact that const just makes sense, there's this guy who claims to be a complete const nazi who you might have heard of. His name is John Carmack.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI3NDQ

That is why you should never learn from one exclusive source, especially if they don't provide valid arguments, and imply "trust me".

I saw a couple of his introductory videos and I think he is great to teach specifics about game programming, but should definitely not teach how to write C.

His argument is that he reckons that over his career he made very few bugs that could be avoided if he had used const. He admits that it's specific to his coding style and may not apply to other people.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com