Maybe stringsAsFactors was a mistake in the original design, but there is so much code out there reliant on this behavior now and since it was the default you d

Maybe stringsAsFactors was a mistake in the original design, but there is so much code out there reliant on this behavior now and since it was the default you don't really know where the new behavorior will bite you besides looking for calls to data.frame that don't set the parameter. Plus, it's not such a bad feature when you know it's coming. As far as the tidyverse goes, I get it now however it seems to discourage the creation of a nice, well organized set of functions to limit the amount you need to keep in your head at the same time, and a lot of R users are very smart people capable of understanding very disorganized code. Instead of functions you get copy/pasted incantations, in Base R it's at least broken down into steps which is a start.