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Show HN: A JavaScript library for data visualization in both SVG and Canvas

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Re: Show HN: A JavaScript library for data visualization in both SVG and Canvas

#12
post #2

there are quite literally at least 20 JavaScript data visualization libraries, many with years of maturity. Are there any particular reasons I should stake my personal usage on your library going forward over any of the others besides the "modern API"? you mentioned you wish you could go full-time on this… How do you foresee this becoming competitive or differentiated from all of the others?

Posting a "Show HN" takes a lot of guts. It's not a product a company is pitching to you, it's something cool that someone made and wants to show.

Re: Show HN: A JavaScript library for data visualization in both SVG and Canvas

#15
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should stake my personal usage Nobody is asking you to do that, you can assess that for yourself if you're interested in looking at the project, if not, there's not much point subjecting the author to this sort of interrogation.

Consider it rephrased in a way that doesn’t upset you, like “what do you think the advantages of your new library are that outweigh the years of development behind existing libraries?”

Its not (just) the phrasing, its that you’re asking a loaded question the author already addressed in the OP. Your question is loaded because it presumes years of development means anything, and the author already wrote in the OP “im aware there are other libraries, but…”

Re: Show HN: A JavaScript library for data visualization in both SVG and Canvas

#17
Hey there,

If a focus is on performance, would you consider doing a side-by-side with other similar libs?

This benchmark was posted on HN a few years back, for example: https://benchmarks.slaylines.io/ (from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23083730)

Or something like the bunnymarks for Pixi (https://www.goodboydigital.com/pixijs/bunnymark/) and Konva (https://konvajs.org/docs/sandbox/Jumping_Bunnies.html)

Your charts examples are kinda hard to compare with because the animations are so slow (not the fault of the lib, they're just slowly drawn to show the animations, I know, but it makes comparisons difficult.)

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In general, your lib reminds me a lot of Konva. I found their examples page to be really helpful in illustrating higher-level usage: https://konvajs.org/docs/sandbox/index.html

Maybe real-world use cases like that could be helpful for yours too? As it is, the readme doesn't make it super clear why it's preferable to any of the other existing libs yet. There are already so many, each with strengths and weaknesses... what sets yours apart?

For example, I don't know why "rendering to both Canvas and SVG" is a selling point in particular. Are there platform-specific reasons (native?) to prefer one over the other, as opposed to whatever a particular lib's implementation might be? Is there a use case where mixing and matching the two might be helpful?

Re: Show HN: A JavaScript library for data visualization in both SVG and Canvas

#18

The readme needs some SVGs (you can embed graphics on github's readme) edit: actually the web page too https://ripl-alpha.vercel.app/ - if your project render things to the screen, I want to see it!

Thanks for the tip :) I've added some screenshots to the readme now.

Re: Show HN: A JavaScript library for data visualization in both SVG and Canvas

#19

Hey there, If a focus is on performance, would you consider doing a side-by-side with other similar libs? This benchmark was posted on HN a few years back, for example: https://benchmarks.slaylines.io/ (from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23083730 ) Or something like the bunnymarks for Pixi ( https://www.goodboydigital.com/pixijs/bunnymark/ ) and Konva ( https://konvajs.org/docs/sandbox/Jumping_Bunnies.html ) Y…

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Re: Show HN: A JavaScript library for data visualization in both SVG and Canvas

#20
As much as I appreciate this (sakes me the time of doing mind-bending D3, etc.), I would very much rather have an off-screen renderer that could generate SVGs server-side.

Somehow we’ve almost completely lost the art of offscreen rendering, which is so much more useful for things like mail, documents, etc.

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