Range Names : Good or Bad programming practice?

[TonyJollans]

I use range names when they offer a clever solution ...

I like 'clever' solutions but that is for my own amusement and I would not recommend them as best practice.

... or an approach that is otherwise impossible

Now that's a good point. Range names do offer solutions to otherwise intractable problems.

But when people use them to name single cells, such as XLD's earlier VAT example I think they add no value but increase the chance of errors

Leaving aside that it is not a single cell at all, I have to disagree completely here. Having, say, VAT as a constant does add value and REDUCES the chance of errors.

... and de facto a constant can only be a singleton ...

That's not entirely correct - you can name a array of constants.


Finally, one point which I don't think has been mentioned so far. Range names can be helpful to users - they can go to a named range very easily without having to scroll aimlessly looking for information or work out what address to use and go to that address - and when they do so, they can see at a glance whether that named range contains what they expect.