At times I'm skeptical of D3 as a wrapper around fundamental JavaScript functions. Sometimes it's simpler just to build your own damn <path> objects than it is

At times I'm skeptical of D3 as a wrapper around fundamental JavaScript functions. Sometimes it's simpler just to build your own damn <path> objects than it is to try and finesse D3 into building the object(s) where and how you want. D3 does provide quite a lot of out of the box. But if you find yourself outside that box it might be worth doing it yourself.