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Software Engineering

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    Up vote because you explain that final and const do not have the same guarantees. Commented Oct 5, 2016 at 4:31
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    Constness is about writeability, not about mutability. Commented Oct 5, 2016 at 9:45
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    What happens if you write to a const reference? A compile time error. What happens if you write to the object that is referenced somewhere by const reference via another non-const reference? It mutates. Immutable object can't mutate, hence const refernce does not necessarily reference immutable object. Commented Oct 5, 2016 at 15:45
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    @Basilevs your observation only applies with const refs. If an object itself is declared const (not just the reference) then it it is more-or-less immutable (unless someone nefariously casts away the constness). Commented Nov 8, 2016 at 5:36
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    @Snowman an object can very definitely be const. const int i = 1; is an object that is neither a reference nor a pointer, and it is const Commented Aug 30, 2017 at 8:41