[ekianjo]

> here is a language there are two ways to even assign a value to a name.

three ways if you count a <<- 1 for writing in global variables from inside functions (of course, not a recommended practice...)

I don't see what you point is though. So there are several ways to do the same thing in a language, so it's bad? Bad in what way?

As for the lapply, sapply, tapply, mapply, it's very well documented as to when and where you should use them. Sapply applies only on a single vector, and for generalization on larger data structures you use the other "applys". Nothing very hard to comprehend, and this is well explained in the official docs.