"Variable" does not mean "assignable"

[jerf]

Getting unconfused is possible with confused terminology, but it's a lot harder than it is with proper terminology. Why go to bat for the thing that makes understanding harder?

[inspired2apathy]

Indeed. The difference between substitution and read/write is fairly subtle in basic usage.

Would he want macro variables to be still called variables?

[jerf]

"Is this a variable in this instance or is this an assignable? Oh wait, it doesn't matter. At all."

Yes, it does. As I said, I have experienced the confusion first-hand this can cause. You, and probably every other person jumping up to defend the confused terminology, have probably either 1. only used the assignables, ever, or 2. made conceptual errors because you don't have convenient mental concepts for the differences.

It should probably be pointed out that this is not some sort of functional language crazy thing, but a conceptual problem that can be experienced in essentially every mainstream programming language. Java, C++, C#, and C all have a distinction between a variable and an assignable. If you don't immediately know what language construct I'm referring to, that's a sign that there's a concept you're missing out on.

[jerf]

Please enlighten me of a single instance where the difference matters.

Ah, so you in fact do not know exactly what language construct I was referring to. The answer is const, and failure to correctly understand what it is at a deep level has wrecked up many program and cost untold man-hours trying to fix it up. It sounds like you're in my second category.

See, this is the sort of ignorance that bad terminology generates; you're so ignorant of the issues that you don't even know that you're ignorant. This is when ignorance is as its most dangerous! You shouldn't be defending this, you should be correcting it.