const and Visual Noise

Description

If we convert all unchanging variables to const variables, we will pollute the code. Not only will our code be less readable, we will also need to type more.

This is a common argument. To be fair, this argument is right to a certain extent.

auto numberOfDoors{2u};

is indeed shorter than

const auto numberOfDoors{2u};

However, typing const or typing almost anything is not a major issue. Creating a meaningful application does not depend on our typing speed.

Can we consider const as visual noise?

Of course we can! But it is not actually visual noise…

Examples of visual noise

Let’s see some examples of visual noise.

Comments

Imagine these lines of code:

struct Car {
  // ...
 int m_horsePower; // Performance in horse power
 };

or

/*
* Gets the performance in horsepower
*/
std::string getHorsepower() {
  // ...
}

Comments that are similar to those above are definitely visual noise… They don’t give any new information. They represent the original sin of comments; they merely repeat what the code does instead of explaining the intention behind the code.