R questions on StackOverflow

R is notoriously hard to learn, but there was just an effort [1] [2] to populate the programming question-and-answer website StackOverflow with content for the R language.

Amusingly, one of the most useful intro questions is: How to search for “R” materials?

Mike Driscoll (who organized an in-person conference event to get this bootstrapped) pointed out that in many ways StackOverflow is a nicer forum for help than a mailing list.  (i.e. the impressive but hard-to-approach R-help.)  It’s more organized, easier to browse, and repetition and wrong answers can get downvoted.  (And more thoughts from John Cook.)