The fact that you are a programmer is exactly the reason R feels funny. Its predecessor (S) was originally just supposed to be an interactive interface for some Fortran libraries. It turned out to be useful to folks doing mathematical applications and grew into a language.
Most introductions to R don't cover it in the same way other languages do. I found http://adv-r.had.co.nz/ to be very helpful for clarifying matters in a manner that is more familiar to programmers.
Most introductions to R don't cover it in the same way other languages do. I found http://adv-r.had.co.nz/ to be very helpful for clarifying matters in a manner that is more familiar to programmers.