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For web dev beginners, I haven't yet seen a better ramp-up tutorial than Scott Murray's "Interactive Data Visualization", which is free online: http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1230000000345/

He really emphasizes the low-level at which D3 operates, as you move from creating shapes with divs and CSS, to eventually learning the D3 framework. Here's his section on "What [D3] Doesn't Do": http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1230000000345/ch02.htm...

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This book is very good and I highly recommend it if you're just starting out. But I didn't feel like I really understood how d3 works until I read these two articles by Mike Bostocks himself.

http://bost.ocks.org/mike/selection/

http://bost.ocks.org/mike/join/

IME, understanding joins and selections is essential when using d3.

Ya, I read this book in a spare afternoon several weeks ago. Most developers can skip the background/introduction chapters but jump directly to the core (but the basics) of d3.js library.

The author has clearly explained how people misunderstand this library because of the fancy sample list. Moreover, d3 is more likely a data abstraction layer rather than a graphics or plotting tool. It gives an interface to represent the data by SVG graphical components.

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