Is it right to use a private constant in the following situation:

Say I have a game with a lives variable and a startingLives variable. At the start of the game I set the lives variable to equal the startingLives variable. This is how I would normally do it:

```
private var lives:int = 0;
private var startingLives:int = 3;

private function startGame():void
{
   lives = startingLives;
}

```

(example code is ActionScript btw)

My question is - should this really be:

```
private var lives:int = 0;
private const STARTING_LIVES:int = 3;

private function startGame():void
{
  lives = STARTING_LIVES;
}

```

StartingLives seems unlikely to change at runtime, so should I use a const, and change back to a variable if it turns out not to be constant? 

UPDATE: The consensus seems to be that this is a good use of a constant, but what about amdfan's suggestion that you may want to load the value in from a config file?