Western Governors University (WGU) ITSW 2113 D278 Scripting and Programming Foundations Practice Exam

A constant is defined as a named value that cannot change throughout the course of a program. This means that once a constant has been defined and assigned a value, that value is fixed and cannot be altered. Constants are particularly useful in programming as they provide a way to give meaningful names to values that remain the same. This enhances code readability and maintainability because other developers (or your future self) can easily see which values are intended to remain constant throughout the execution of the program.

In contrast, the other options describe different concepts: a variable that can change value refers to a mutable data type that allows for reassignment. An array with mutable items suggests a data structure that can contain elements which themselves may change. A function that does not return a value describes a procedure or subroutine that performs actions but does not provide output. Each of these options reflects characteristics of variables or functions in programming rather than the fixed nature of a constant.