[scikit-learn] Why does sklearn require one-hot-encoding for categorical features? Can we have a "factor" data type?

[Gael Varoquaux]

On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 03:55:00PM -0400, C W wrote:
> I've used R and Stata software, none needs such transformation. They have a
> data type called "factors", which is different from "numeric".

> My problem with OHE:
> One-hot-encoding results in large number of features. This really blows up
> quickly. And I have to fight curse of dimensionality with PCA reduction. That's
> not cool!

Most statistical models still not one-hot encoding behind the hood. So, R
and stata do it too.

Typically, tree-based models can be adapted to work directly on
categorical data. Ours don't. It's work in progress.

G