[R] (Another) Bates fortune?

[Peter Dalgaard]

Peter Ehlers wrote:
> I vote to 'fortunize' Doug Bates on
> 
>  Hierarchical data sets: which software to use?
> 
> "The widespread use of spreadsheets or SPSS data sets or SAS data sets
> which encourage the "single table with a gargantuan number of columns,
> most of which are missing data in most cases" approach to organization
> of longitudinal data is regrettable."
> 
> http://n4.nabble.com/Hierarchical-data-sets-which-software-to-use-td1458477.html#a1470430 
> 
> 

Hmm, well, it's not like "long format" data frames (which I actually 
think are more common in connection with SAS's PROC MIXED) are much 
better. Those tend to replicate base data unnecessarily - "as if rats 
change sex with millisecond resolution". The correct data structure 
would be a relational database with multiple levels of tables, but, to 
my knowledge, no statistical software, including R, is prepared to deal 
with data in that form.


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