Why is D3 so Verbose?

Re:Why is D3 so Verbose? by text0404 on Thursday August 21, 2025 @10:47AM (#44973486)

Note: the example is a misconception and not what's meant by "binding to data." In D3, binding to data refers to using the `.data()` method to supply an object (typically an array) which you can then use in a function callback in the accessors, so like `.attr('x1', d => /* access individual array item here */)`. This allows you to easily bind a dataset to a graphical representation and use its attributes to inform the properties of the visualization.

I'd also argue that D3 is no more verbose than vanilla JS (at least for this example). What's the alternative for creating a line in SVG?

    const line = document.createElementNS('http://www.w3.org/2000/svg', 'line')
    line.setAttribute('x1', ...)
    line.setAttribute('y1', ...)
    line.setAttribute('x2', ...)
    line.setAttribute('y2', ...)
    // etc
    document.querySelector('svg').appendChild(line)

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Re:Why is D3 so Verbose? by TheHeasman on Thursday August 21, 2025 @11:15AM (#44973826)

This is very fair: I went for a metaphorical explanation, rather than a literal one. (For instance, I'd actually have had to write down the code for an SVG, and I was quickly writing this on my lunch break).

The `.selectAll().data().join()` data binding method (or `.enter()` on older versions) is very intuitive once you understand it, but for the layman coming in, it's inaccessible AF. I fudged a little in my explanation to make it more accessible. But hey. That's learning.

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Re:Why is D3 so Verbose? by text0404 on Thursday August 21, 2025 @11:30AM (#44974041)

For sure, data joining (and enter/exit) is arguably the learning curve wrt D3. TBH since I've started using FE frameworks which handle the DOM, d3-selection (and having to think about data binding) has almost completely fallen off my radar. Now it's mostly using functions from d3-scale, d3-geo, d3-shape, etc then mapping over that output to manually render DOM nodes.

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Re:Why is D3 so Verbose? by bapak on Thursday August 21, 2025 @12:21PM (#44974615)

> I'd also argue that D3 is no more verbose than vanilla JS

Right? So why load a bunch of JS to do the same thing? One step further, why load any JS at all since you're just generating an SVG? People have forgotten that HTML and SVG are meant to be DATA containers, you don't have to use JSON + JS.

D3 is cool for the advanced visualizations and the interactivity. If you're sticking to static graphs, for the love of god just have the server serve a static SVG.

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Re:Why is D3 so Verbose? by stevage on Thursday August 21, 2025 @07:15PM (#44979304)

>I'd also argue that D3 is no more verbose than vanilla JS

That's like saying that your car is no slower than walking. You want your visualisation library to be a big improvement on not having one, not "no worse".

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