You managed to cherry-pick the few Good Parts.

Question for you: what is the syntax for declaring a variable, initializing the variable, referencing the variable later, and assigning the value of that variable to another variable? ;-)

Now that I have refreshed your memory, do you still insist it's not lousy?

For the innocent bystanders, here is how those steps are:

  set var         # just creating the variable .. easy
                  # but set is a configurable command!
                  #  see your "sh" variety man for more info

  set var=value   # no space on either side of '='!
                  # 'value' can only be one word string,
                  #     number or character.
                  #     because single characters are 
                  #      ubiquitous in nature ..
                  #       chars chars, everywhere
                  # if you want a multiword string, use ()
                  #   or "a raw string with spaces"
                  #   unless you want $ not to be expanded
                  #     then use 'raw constant string'
                  #   and if you want to run a program and
                  #     insert its output into the string ..
                  #     use "`program`"
                  # did I say you can't put spaces around =?

  # eskooz me, I am just dereferencing var
  set newvar=$var # need a magic syntax, it's teh C ptr
                  # unless you want the *whole* value
                  #   then you use ($var) or was it $(var)?
                  #   again, ask your sh variety manpage
                  #     I love portability
                  # if $var isn't bound, use $?var to test
                  #   we said 'set' is a command above
                  #   so using unbound var is ..
                  #     dependant (sic) on settings

  # if var contains multiple words (why is that a unit
  #   of input neway?) you can index it and count elements
  # with $#var and $var[i] respectively; we made everything
  # an external command or built in, but LENGTH and INDEX
  # need to be special syntax, because they're more vital
  # than goddamn assignment (which is fine being a builtin)