I'm 100% with you, the variable name kEmpty here is completely tautological - it just describes the literal in a different, clunkier way, and doesn't add any in

I'm 100% with you, the variable name kEmpty here is completely tautological - it just describes the literal in a different, clunkier way, and doesn't add any information. Kind of similar to something like nameOfSteve = "steve" The case where it's useful is where instead you'd call the variable referring to a constant something like dollarCurrencyCode = "USD", where you have to use an api which takes a currency code but you will always pass "USD". To the uninitiated reader, what purpose does the literal "USD" serve - what does it mean? It's not clear, because they don't know the api, and may not intuit currency codes. Putting it behind the dollarCurrencyCode variable name makes it a lot clearer on first glance. If they care to know what the dollarCurrencyCode is 'under the hood', they can then look, but this is a lower level detail of the underlying api and doesn't help with understanding.