K-modes clustering was originally developed by 
Anil Chaturvedi, Paul Green and me in 1994, but, 
for various reasons, not published until 
2001.  K-modes indeed is the optimal procedure to 
use for the problem of clustering categorical 
data you describe.  The reference for our paper is:

Chaturvedi, A.D.,  Green, P.E. & Carroll, J.D. 
(2001).  K-modes clustering.  Journal of Classification, 18, 35-56.

Doug Carroll

At 09:39 AM 2/4/2008, Arnaud Trollé wrote:
>Hello,
>
>I'd like to cluster categorical data (3 
>categories) by means of a partitioning
>method; I'm quite a beginner in that field and I would need to be enlightened.
> From a bibliographic review I carried out about 
> that topic, it appeared to me
>that a method is often used :the k-modes method. From her/his experience,
>could anyone confirm or deny that it is the case ? If denied, which method
>could be more "powerful" ?
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Best Regards.
>Arnaud.
>PhD Student in Acoustics.
>Lyon, France.
>
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