Maybe for discussion rather than revelation, but why use constants as sub-routines?

Constant functions can be used to optimize away parts of your program, are just as fast as regular scalars, and they can't be modified "accidentally". You can create these automatically with use constant FOO => 'bar';

Regular variables can be created faster (no module import required), used inside strings without special handling, and are often more "user friendly" in this regard.

There was a module called Tie::Const which created "read-only" variables using, of course, tie. The end result is slower scalars, just so you can put them in strings directly and have the piece of mind that they aren't being modified. This seems like a sub-optimal solution, and indeed, the module has been decommissioned.

I'd rather see something like this in the future: 
my const $FOO = 'bar';     # This is preferable, excuse my C++
my $FOO : const = 'bar';   # This is "more Perly"

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const is really useful when applied correctly, but Perl has no such mechanism. This is a huge drawback when it comes to optimization.

In reply to Re: Constant subroutines thoughts by tadman
in thread Constant subroutines thoughts by Courage

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