Why is the copy-constructor argument const?

Question

 Vector(const Vector& other) // Copy constructor 
 {
    x = other.x;
    y = other.y;

Why is the argument a const?

Answer 1

You've gotten answers that mention ensuring that the ctor can't change what's being copied -- and they're right, putting the const there does have that effect.

More important, however, is that a temporary object cannot bind to a non-const reference. The copy ctor must take a reference to a const object to be able to make copies of temporary objects.