Moebio Framework – A JavaScript toolkit for data analysis and visualizations | Hacker News Reader

Moebio Framework – A JavaScript toolkit for data analysis and visualizations

moebiolabs.github.io

37 pointsjashkenas5 comments

Seems like another kitchen sink library to me... Demos are impressive, but when is someone going to write a JS viz library in a more declarative fashion like outlined in Grammar of Graphics? They all seem overly imperative (draw this pixel, then that pixel) or rigid, non-composable functions taking huge configuration JSON blobs.

>"Google Play - Read The Grammar of Graphics for $103.41"

I wonder what negative impacts textbook pricing has on software development.

If I was going to start a graphics library as a non-profit side project, that'd be a big barrier.

I agree it's a barrier to have such crazy prices, but there are free resources available, especially on a topic as popular as Grammar of Graphics. Hadley Wickham (in my mind, synonymous with the concept, since he implemented Wilkinson's ideas in R's ggplot package), for instance, has numerous materials on it, including a short primer (http://vita.had.co.nz/papers/layered-grammar.pdf). It might not be as exhaustive as the Wilkinson text, but surely there's enough material out there to implement GG in JS, especially considering there's successful implementations in other languages?

Do you know Vega[1]? I'm also a fan of declarative frameworks, and I was amazed by how easy it is to make a custom chart or map.

  [1] https://trifacta.github.io/vega/

As usual, nothing in the homepage to indicate why anyone should choose this toolkit over existing, mature competitors (like D3) in the same space.

Unless you're legitimately doing something that's never been done before, just saying "it does X" isn't very interesting. How does it do X better?

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