To clarify, I favor changing the defaults for stringsAsFactors and show.signif.stars to FALSE in R-3.0.0, and view any attempt to remove either functionality as a seemingly simple but fundamentally misguided idea.
This is just my opinion, of course. The change could easily be accompanied by a startup notice or release notes indicating that the changes have been made, and can be reverted to past behavior if the user so desires. Perhaps more users will investigate the various settings, as a happy side effect. My thanks to everyone who spends time supporting and working on R-core. On Sat, Feb 9, 2013 at 12:44 PM, Tim Triche, Jr. <tim.tri...@gmail.com>wrote: > Changing the default for show.signif.stars should be sufficient to ensure > that, if people are going to get themselves into trouble, they will have to > do it on purpose. It's just a visual cue; removing it will not remove the > underlying issue, namely blind acceptance of unlikely null models and > distributions. > > For any complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and > wrong. As grants and careers can depend on these magic numbers, Upton > Sinclair might save everyone some trouble... It is difficult to get a man > to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not > understanding. > > stringsAsFactors, however, is responsible for an endless stream of mildly > irritating misunderstandings, and defaulting that to FALSE would be very > nice. > > Just my $0.02. Defaults are one of the most powerful forces in the > universe. > > Also, I liked your book. > > > > On Sat, Feb 9, 2013 at 10:48 AM, Norm Matloff <matl...@cs.ucdavis.edu>wrote: > >> Thanks for bringing this up, Frank. >> >> Since many of us are "educators," I'd like to suggest a bolder approach. >> Discontinue even offering the stars as an option. Sadly, we can't stop >> reporting p-values, as the world expects them, but does R need to cater >> to that attitude by offering star display? For that matter, why not >> have R report confidence intervals as a default? >> >> Many years ago, I wrote a short textbook on stat, and included a >> substantial section on the dangers of significance testing. All three >> internal reviewers liked it, but the funny part is that all three said, >> "I agree with this, but no one else will." :-) >> >> Norm >> >> ______________________________________________ >> R-devel@r-project.org mailing list >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel >> > > > > -- > *A model is a lie that helps you see the truth.* > * > * > Howard Skipper<http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/31/9/1173.full.pdf> > -- *A model is a lie that helps you see the truth.* * * Howard Skipper<http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/31/9/1173.full.pdf> [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
