[R] Accessing named elements of a vector

[Matthias Gondan]

Dear R developers,

A great R feature is that elements of vectors, lists and dataframes can 
have names:

vx = c(a=1, b=2)
lx = list(a=1, b=2)

Accessing element "a" of vx: vx['a']
Accessing element "a" of lx: lx[['a']] or lx$a

Might be a matter of taste, but I like the $ very much. Unfortunately, 
vx$a is not
functional. Would it break existing compatibility if the $ would be 
allowed to
access elements of a vector, as well?

Best regards,

Matthias