any tips on keeping track of attributes / parms / variable names, and if houdini will see them in other contexts, if they already exist, etc.?

[TobyGaines]

It's so hard to know or remember which is which and when / where you can use them

Broad subject I know, but also a big hurdle in learning the best aspects of H, so any thoughts or techniques would be appreciated

In my case, if it helps ; trying to get my Pref attr into an aov, in Arnold ( no bind node ), but the shader is in a .ass file too, maybe I'm outta luck