Value of const/final members in classes?

[wtd]

So... what's your opinion? Do constant or final (in the case of Java and some others) members (or "instance variables") have merit?

Or should this be purely enforced by the methods a classes exposes?

[[Gandalf]]

They're useful for internal use inside a class, no? For constants which you must access externally, I'd use methods.

[wtd]

I was actually thinking of just the opposite.

Consider:

code:

class Foo {    private:       int _bar;      public:       Foo(int b) : _bar(b) { }       int bar() const       {          return _bar;       } };

vs.

code:

struct Foo {    const int bar;    Foo(int b) : bar(b) { } };