I think DF.jl works remarkably well as a "fits in RAM" dataframe backend, but I think it just lacks in usability and integratedness with the wider Julia ecosystem. Or rather, the wider ecosystem isn't as mature in key data analysis areas.

In particular, as you mention, plotting is one of the evolving parts of the ecosystem. Plots.jl is fine, Makie is powerful but very DIY, and AoG is slick but unwieldy. ggplot2 is far from perfect, but it works so well due to its maturity and integration with the rest of the Tidyverse.

In my ideal world, there would be a DataFrames.jl wrapper to provide nice (not just nicer like the two DFM.jl packages) syntax, and a powerful high-level plotting package (Makie is powerful but syntax is low level, Plots is mid on both) which is heavily integrated with the wrapper package.

Admittedly, I'm not a data scientist (anymore) so I don't follow the new developments in the dataviz scene much. If something like this exists then I would love to find it.

I wonder what my ideal syntax would look like anyway. Maybe something close to Tidyverse but with symbols as column names `:col_name` for ambiguity reasons.