[R] Can R handle a matrix with 8 billion entries?

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Tue, 9 Aug 2011, Peter Langfelder wrote:

>> Assuming you need the full distance matrix at one time (which you do not for
>> hierarchical clustering, itself a highly dubious method for more than a few
>> hundred points).
>
> Apologies if this hijacks the thread, but why is hierarchical
> clustering "highly dubious for more than a few
> hundred points"?

That is off-topic for R-help: see the posting guide.

>
> Peter
>

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
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