[R] what does this mean in R-1.8.1 release notes?

[Liaw, Andy]

> From: Peter Dalgaard [mailto:p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk] 
> 
> John Christie <jc at or.psychology.dal.ca> writes:
> 
> > what does this mean in R-1.8.1 release notes?
> > 
> >      o	median() no longer `works' for odd-length 
> factor variables.
> 
> The median has always been undefined for factors, but nevertheless
> median() gave an answer. If the length was even, it would 
> fail since it needed to average non-numeric values. This 
> confused some and the answer you got for in the odd-length 
> case was meaningless anyway (what's the median of three 
> pears, four apples, and two bananas?). So now we check.

Why not just give an error if median is given an unordered factor?

Andy
 
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>    O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
>   c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
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