Ben:You don't "need" the parenthesis, it just helps keep things organized - and you're right about having to reference the variables somewhere on the page OR initialize them at the root of the course or chapter or section or page. Many times when I need to make sure a variable is available I just init it to its own value VarVARIABLE=VarVARIABLE.value.getValue() is Trivantis's function to return the value of the variable. dot_value (.value) is javascripts process of returning the value of a variable as the variables property (VALUE). Peter.hair returns yes (javascript) Peter.doesHeHaveHair() returns yes (Trivantis).
