D3 in Depth • Hacker News Board

Re: D3 in Depth

#81

Post by javajosh » Fri, May 17, 2024, 1:24 PM UTC

stared wrote: post #44

javajosh wrote: post #38

The real problem with D3 is that, as a library, it doesn't really do visualizations. It gives you functions and exmaples to compose your own visualizations, whose key requirement is an expert-level understanding of JavaScript (particularly closures and functional programming). What mbostock says is the core "abstraction" of D3, the select and select diffing, is only an affordance for writing reentrant "paint()", with…

Well, D3 is not a set of tools for charts (alike matplotlib, ggplot or so), but a low-level library to create your data visualization from scratch. Depending on your goal, it may or may not be what you need.

Yes, and I think that's the correct expectation to set. I don't even disagree with its design choices - I like the composability of pure functions as much as the next guy.

Re: D3 in Depth

#82

Post by stared » Fri, May 17, 2024, 2:55 PM UTC

pj84 wrote: post #76

stared wrote: post #40

I've been in love with D3.js and have used it as the key technology for dozens of data visualization projects, both commercial and personal. However, its rendering syntax now feels dated, reminiscent of the jQuery era. While I still use various auxiliary functions (e.g., for ease or scaling), I now create actual components in a modern framework (in my case, Vue 3 and TypeScript). Despite this shift, I am grateful to…

I am very interested in this, do you have any examples for vue3 and typescript + d3 auxiliary functions? Thanks!

Well, see my current work in progress: https://github.com/stared/balfolk-viz/blob/main/src/componen... and D3 part in https://github.com/stared/balfolk-viz/blob/main/src/scripts/....

Re: D3 in Depth

#83

Post by gofreddygo » Fri, May 17, 2024, 3:00 PM UTC

mbostock wrote: post #17

gaws wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plot and Framework are locked into the Observable ecosystem, which has its own learning curve. Learning D3 offers the best flexibility and control.

In what way are these free open-source tools “locked-in” to Observable? Observable Plot is a vanilla JavaScript library that is released under the ISC license and can be used with any style of web development (e.g., React, Svelte, whatever). And likewise Observable Framework is released under the ISC license and you’re able to self-host projects anywhere and develop locally?

D3 for me is feature complete. Has been that way for me for years (maybe since v3).

Never had a problem, never felt the need to upgrade. Still have a bunch of stuff that just works.

Thank you for your effort.

Re: D3 in Depth

#84

Post by jd3 » Mon, May 20, 2024, 7:49 PM UTC

treflop wrote: post #9

I like d3 and have built a lot of things in it but every time I go back to it after not using it for a few years, I can never remember much, the docs just confuse me more, and I feel like I’m back at square one. Whereas you could show me some partial differential equations to solve that I haven’t touched in 10 years and that somehow comes back quicker. But I also think the d3 reference docs are absolutely horrible to…

I built a rather complex visualization system for our dashboards project before covid and I would argue that 90% of it was copy/pasting from d3 examples and then making necessary modifications visually for our codebase + abstracting common elements for the sake of readability, glanceability, and structure.

Then, I just had to write the necessary aggregation/group_by sql to give it the data it expects in the correct shape. Tedious, but it was the path of least resistance.