What is the role and purpose of constants in programming?

Constants in programming are named values that do not change during the execution of a program. Their roles and purposes are:

• Ensure data immutability, which increases the reliability and predictability of the code.
• Improve code readability and maintainability, as understandable names are used instead of "magic numbers" or strings.
• Allow centralized management of values used in different parts of the program.

In programming languages, constants are usually declared using keywords such as final in Java or val in Kotlin.

Example in Kotlin:

const val MAX_USERS = 100

fun checkUsers(count: Int) {
    if (count > MAX_USERS) {
        println("Maximum number of users exceeded")
    }
}