I started using R about 3 years ago. It was slow going at first. R had tricky and less intuitive syntax than languages I was used to, and it took a while to get accustomed to the nuances. It wasn’t immediately clear to me that the power of the language was bound up with the community and the diverse packages available.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://blog.datasciencedojo.com/10-r-packages-i-wish-i-knew-about-earlier/