Hi Bill,
I swear I'm not dogging you :-)
The point Erik raised is not the theoretical benefit of constants, and there are many. But it's the squirrelly and hazard-prone way in which VFP supports them that makes them a pain.
It's like OOAD principles. I find myself violating them at least once in every application I develop. Why? Because the "true and correct" way sometimes gets in the way of the goal, which is to create a hassle-free, error-less application for my client.
It's like Codebook (Menachem, Yag -- don't sent hit men after me). Or the Tastrade example. Technically beautiful constructs but applications designed on those "politically correct" frameworks run like shit. IMHO, a client doesn't care how pretty things are under the hood, they want results.
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John Koziol, ex-MVP, ex-MS, ex-FoxTeam. Just call me "X"
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" - Hunter Thompson (Gonzo) RIP 2/19/05