Factors in R: more than an annoyance?

Question

One of the basic data types in R is factors. In my experience factors are basically a pain and I never use them. I always convert to characters. I feel oddly like I\'m missi

Answer 1

What a snarky title!

I believe many estimation functions allow you to use factors to easily define dummy variables... but I don't use them for that.

I use them when I have very large character vectors with few unique observations. This can cut down on memory consumption, especially if the strings in the character vector are longer-ish.

PS - I'm joking about the title. I saw your tweet. ;-)