Why is D3 so Verbose?
theheasman.com
Why is D3 so Verbose?
1–10 of 75 posts
Re: Why is D3 so Verbose?
#2I feel like D3 ought to be the for-computer substrate for libraries that are actually for humans.
I suppose it matters less now in the LLM age.
Re: Why is D3 so Verbose?
#3More granular control, more verbosity.
I am still proud of the D3 gadget I made about 8 years back as a green web dev. Couldn't have made it any other way, not sure if I could with any other library today. Wouldn't want to do it again, though, unless I was a dedicated front-end guy.
Re: Why is D3 so Verbose?
#4This is why I've always found it weird that people consider D3 to be a charting tool. Yes, people have used it to build a lot of charts, but it's really just a streaming data processing tool. It doesn't provide anything specific to charting[0]. All of that part, you're still left to figure out on your own.
[0] At least in the core, I'm not too familiar with the full ecosystem and what is considered official in terms of plugins. Everytime I've tried to use it, I've not found the documentation leading me to using anything more specifically oriented towards charting.
Re: Why is D3 so Verbose?
#5[dead]
Re: Why is D3 so Verbose?
#6All right, I got nerdsniped into writing a "yes and" sort of thing even though I agree with the gist of this article :) https://macwright.com/2025/08/21/why-d3-is-so-verbose-anothe...
Re: Why is D3 so Verbose?
#7I'd say because JavaScript is insufficiently expressive. No macros, no arrow (pipe) operator, and the premier way of writing it is 4x as verbose than what I'd consider reasonable. D3 is a great library though.
Re: Why is D3 so Verbose?
#8I'd say because JavaScript is insufficiently expressive. No macros, no arrow (pipe) operator, and the premier way of writing it is 4x as verbose than what I'd consider reasonable. D3 is a great library though.
what do you mean by "arrow operator"?
Re: Why is D3 so Verbose?
#9[deleted]
Re: Why is D3 so Verbose?
#10I feel like D3 ought to be the for-computer substrate for libraries that are actually for humans. I suppose it matters less now in the LLM age.
If your LLM is the only one that can reasonably maintain your software, you essentially created a new kind of lock-in, similar to what we already solved with open source a long, long time ago.
Once your LLM gets too expensive, goes out of business, and the competitors just don't quite do it the way your favorite LLM does it, you have a problem.