Hi there, author here. I agree that the post is "not useful to select a library", especially because it just compares one very specific visualisation form. I'm working on a third, more high-level view on data vis tools and hope this one will be more useful for choosing a library.
Re:One Chart, Twelve Charting Libraries
by RockyMcNuts on Saturday May 21, 2016 @10:16AM
(#11744735)
I think the post is useful as an overview of a lot of options, and how hard they are to get started with.
True, you'd use R charts because your data and analysis are in R, you wouldn't use R because of the charts.
Hm, I don't think you can speak for everybody. I find myself (re)creating a chart in R quite often. I sometimes create visualisations for print, and I just want an SVG or PDF to then import to Illustrator. Before I knew that you can export PDFs in Tableau, I often used Tableau for the analysis part and then went to R to recreate the same chart and export as PDF.
Re:One Chart, Twelve Charting Libraries
by RockyMcNuts on Saturday May 21, 2016 @12:20PM
(#11745193)
hey, if it works! though doing analysis in Tableau and charts in R does make me cringe a little … https://goo.gl/9mgTTI
Very strongly disagree that understanding statistics is a prerequisite to learning R. There is a lot you can do with R with understanding statistics.
I also dislike the claim that R is not a real programming language. It is. Just because it makes different choices to other popular languages doesn't make it a toy.
Re:One Chart, Twelve Charting Libraries
by LionessLover on Sunday May 22, 2016 @03:47PM
(#11749962)
> is a prerequisite to learning R
Which is not what I said, so I have no idea what exactly you "very strongly" disagree with - it's all in your head. You disagree with your own vivid imagination.
> I also dislike the claim that R is not a real programming language
The only one saying that is YOU!
This is you - "Dick from the Internet": http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-06-07
Making up stuff to (strongly, of course!) disagree with!
Have a look at some basic ggplot2 examples (all examples were made from the same data): http://tutorials.iq.harvard.edu/R/Rgraphics/Rgraphics.html
I hate to be negative, but this overview is useful only for people who don't really need it - who want to have a look but not actually do anything with it. It's not useful to select a library (especially since it compares completely different languages), and if you already know which system and language to go with it's not useful either.
If you think about learning R: If you don't also learn (a significant amount of) statistics it's a waste of time IMHO. There are (free, if you ignore the "verified certificate" options) courses available on Coursera and edX - even Microsoft has one (on edX). It's worth it - and I mean learning the statistics, not just R. Even if you don't think you need it professionally. Don't try using R as a "graphics" (plotting) or even a programming package - quite frankly, it's not very good at the latter (all modern "real" programming languages are better and more consistent and less "hacky"), but to work your way through lots of DATA quickly R is beautiful.