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How to build a graph visualization engine

memgraph.com

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Re: How to build a graph visualization engine

#21

Post by dtomicevic »

stuntkite wrote: post #16
mkaic wrote: post #12

> Building something from scratch is rarely a good idea. In the context of this article, I agree. Professional products should probably not try to build everything from scratch. But I do think it's important to acknowledge that building things from scratch as personal projects is one of the absolute best ways to gain a deep understanding of a topic. Even if you go on to use graph visualization engines built by others…

It depends on how you value your time and effort. Not every idea should be valued by its market fit. I don't think people should write code they are uninterested in writing. That's my litmus test for myself. Usually when I'm really, really interested the thing I'm aiming at doing initially isn't even about what I'm really trying to solve. It's picking away at the cruft over something and then I can see what's on the…

haha well, while running a pig farm is also a difficult business, there are some interesting challenges you can tackle :D also you could write software to manage some aspects of your pig farm

Re: How to build a graph visualization engine

#22

Post by dtomicevic »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #19

"And why you shouldn't" doesn't deserve equal billing in the headline. The article structure is * first two sentences: You shouldn't build from scratch * next four sentences: How not building from scratch failed for us * entire rest of article: How we built from scratch and made an amazing product you should try. I guess the implication is "you shouldn't build an engine because we just built the engine to end all eng…

something like that, I think we still agree it's an amazing product and now there is really no reason to rebuild it from scratch, at least for a while...

Re: How to build a graph visualization engine

#23

Post by xani_ »

mkaic wrote: post #12

> Building something from scratch is rarely a good idea. In the context of this article, I agree. Professional products should probably not try to build everything from scratch. But I do think it's important to acknowledge that building things from scratch as personal projects is one of the absolute best ways to gain a deep understanding of a topic. Even if you go on to use graph visualization engines built by others…

I agree. Making a personal blog engine gave me new hatred for anything frontend and a deal of compassion for people that have to deal with that mess professionally.

Re: How to build a graph visualization engine

#24

Post by stuntkite »

dtomicevic wrote: post #21
stuntkite wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on how you value your time and effort. Not every idea should be valued by its market fit. I don't think people should write code they are uninterested in writing. That's my litmus test for myself. Usually when I'm really, really interested the thing I'm aiming at doing initially isn't even about what I'm really trying to solve. It's picking away at the cruft over something and then I can see what's on the…

haha well, while running a pig farm is also a difficult business, there are some interesting challenges you can tackle :D also you could write software to manage some aspects of your pig farm

Definitely. I have some giant robots and spend a lot of my time with computer vision. I'm gonna put them on tank treads and have them tend to the farm. I just like... fuckin do not want to ever be asked to and feel like I should care about anything related to javascript.... ever again... past 2024, but with just a tiny nudge, I could just live that life tomorrow.

Re: How to build a graph visualization engine

#25

Post by stuntkite »

xani_ wrote: post #23
mkaic wrote: post #12

> Building something from scratch is rarely a good idea. In the context of this article, I agree. Professional products should probably not try to build everything from scratch. But I do think it's important to acknowledge that building things from scratch as personal projects is one of the absolute best ways to gain a deep understanding of a topic. Even if you go on to use graph visualization engines built by others…

I agree. Making a personal blog engine gave me new hatred for anything frontend and a deal of compassion for people that have to deal with that mess professionally.

What blog engine and why did you and I assume your partners feel like the world needed another one? Not being glib. I'm genuinely curious.

Re: How to build a graph visualization engine

#26

Post by jylam »

stuntkite wrote: post #16
mkaic wrote: post #12

> Building something from scratch is rarely a good idea. In the context of this article, I agree. Professional products should probably not try to build everything from scratch. But I do think it's important to acknowledge that building things from scratch as personal projects is one of the absolute best ways to gain a deep understanding of a topic. Even if you go on to use graph visualization engines built by others…

It depends on how you value your time and effort. Not every idea should be valued by its market fit. I don't think people should write code they are uninterested in writing. That's my litmus test for myself. Usually when I'm really, really interested the thing I'm aiming at doing initially isn't even about what I'm really trying to solve. It's picking away at the cruft over something and then I can see what's on the…

I don't thing Parent was talking about business at all. Personal projects are not things you do because of potential business opportunities in my book. I wrote a GameBoy emulator, several raytracers, countless demos on 8bits machines, countless "IoT" things, an automatic cat feeder, a 3d scanner and much more, I never ever had the goal to transform that into money, that was for fun.

Of course you won't write anything that you hate at first, because it's for fun. But hating something for some days or weeks is part of the fun, too. You are challenging yourself, not doing it the easy way, to appreciate how well the others are doing.

If you want to turn it into a business, so yeah, don't write a graph visualization engine, or crypto stuff, or anything really. Get a job, that can be fun too, and let the entrepreneurs figure out the rest.

Re: How to build a graph visualization engine

#27

Post by taubek »

stuntkite wrote: post #18
mbuda wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the Github repo https://github.com/memgraph/orb , it's Apache-2, with a lot of thinking around the software design :D

This looks pretty clunky. Is this what Neo4j uses in their viewer? It feels like it's related.

No, Neo4j doesn't use Orb. Orb was released just recently.

Re: How to build a graph visualization engine

#28

Post by taubek »

stuntkite wrote: post #25
xani_ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Making a personal blog engine gave me new hatred for anything frontend and a deal of compassion for people that have to deal with that mess professionally.

What blog engine and why did you and I assume your partners feel like the world needed another one? Not being glib. I'm genuinely curious.

Yeah, I'd like also to take a look at it.

Re: How to build a graph visualization engine

#30

Post by mbuda »

stuntkite wrote: post #18
mbuda wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the Github repo https://github.com/memgraph/orb , it's Apache-2, with a lot of thinking around the software design :D

This looks pretty clunky. Is this what Neo4j uses in their viewer? It feels like it's related.

It's not, it's also based on d3 (like Neo4j viewer I think), but build from from 0
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