Really there is, I know all that, that is exactly how the programers on the Keyboard Maestro site went with me. I am a bad example maybe as I actually understand mathematical logic and have actually studied variables there. They aren’t actually quite the same as they are for programmers and that might be part of my problem.
they are not as as obvious as they seem anyway. “The studied ambiguity of the variable” as Willard Quine said. However I don’t think that is where the problem lies. If I knew where the problem was, well I would explain it on the Keyboard Maestro forum and here. What you say, and you are right by the way, doesn’t seem to help. Other people here now say the same thing.
We tried hard but we couldn’t get it right and dropped it in fact. There was the further complication of other terminolgy, ‘token’ for example. Variables in computing have to be set up really, ‘defined’ as some programmers say. It is true in math too of course really. I think the issue is with the mechanisms for setting them up somehow. Which is not at all obvious how to do. You can’t just type in ‘variable’ usually, or ‘x’ or whatever. You even see this kind of think “Variblevariable”. For example in this text ‘variable’ is just being used as a word. Something iike that is happening I think at a crucial juncture. It is like if you called your kid “Last Name, First Name”. for a joke, it wouldn’t be funny.
@MacSparky uses a similar and common analogy, a container one. But it isn’t the same really if you go into real detail.
The analogies are correct but, for some reason they still don’t seem to help on using them often on Keyboard Maestro.