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I disagree with both of your points. I know it's hard to refute your first point as you could point to any example, but if I'm just trying to follow the happy,

I disagree with both of your points. I know it's hard to refute your first point as you could point to any example, but if I'm just trying to follow the happy, well-trodden path it's hard. Eg. I go to D3 website [1], I click "documentation" link [2] in header which takes me to the Github, I click the first link "introduction" and the page is actually hosted on Observable [3]. If I click on the "examples" link on the Github or website...it takes me back to observable.org gallery!! [4] This forum thread (on Observable) summarised exactly what I was thinking: "I want to learn D3. I don`t want to learn Observable. Is that ok?" [5] One person asks "Why can we not simply download vanilla code examples without any “Observableness” in them?" The reply by Mike is dismissive of their viewpoint and basically says learning D3 outside of Observable isn't supported: > We recognize that this is a change and a disruption: a new thing to learn. And we need to do a better job of helping you learn Observable (and explaining why you should bother). > Yet despite our shortcomings, we fundamentally believe that Observable is a better way to code 2: easier to understand, easier to tinker, easier to adapt and reuse, easier to collaborate and share. Maybe basically impossible isn't the right description, but they don't make it easy to get started without using Observable. On your second point, here is a HN discussion [6] on why Observable isn't JS. Observable has a _whole standard library_ [7]. Porting from Observable to vanilla JS is not just "removing a few lines of observable scaffolding". [1]: https://d3js.org/ https://d3js.org/ [2]: https://github.com/d3/d3/wiki https://github.com/d3/d3/wiki [3]: https://observablehq.com/@d3/learn-d3 https://observablehq.com/@d3/learn-d3 [4]: https://observablehq.com/@d3/gallery https://observablehq.com/@d3/gallery [5]: https://talk.observablehq.com/t/i-want-to-learn-d3-i-don-t-want-to-learn-observable-is-that-ok/1957 https://talk.observablehq.com/t/i-want-to-learn-d3-i-don-t-w... [6]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20184181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20184181 [7]: https://github.com/observablehq/stdlib/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/observablehq/stdlib/blob/master/README.md

jwilber 6y ago
You admitted your original, “learning D3 without observable is basically impossible” was overblown, but follow up with, “Mike is dismissive... and learning D3 outside of Observable isn’t supported”. Let’s be clear, D3 is an open-source library. In no way, shape, or form is Mike required to support and produce tutorials for the language. The fact that what he has been kind enough to produce was done so using Observable has no bearing on your issue of “getting started with D3” when non-Observable tutorials abound. If you just google “D3 tutorial” you’ll see that all links but one point to non-Observable resources.[0] The article in Point 2 is a great one, but I'm not sure why you're linking it here. The implementation details are wholly unrelated to a) our discussion and b) whether or not it’s easy to port example D3 code to vanilla.js. It’s like someone arguing that porting Jupyter notebooks to Python scripts (something fairly chill to do) is difficult because of some unrelated implementation detail in Jupyter’s core code - the detail is irrelevant. To make sure I’m not just talking out of my ass, I just went through a few of the initial "learn D3 Observable" Google results that came up, and in literally all of them all you need to do is 1. remove any enclosing brackets (if they exist) and remove 2. remove calls to svg.node() and boom - you can paste everything into a script tag. Is that obvious to someone who doesn’t know D3 or Observable? Honestly, probably not. It can be clearer and I agree it should be spelled out somewhere (if it is, I don’t see it). Is it obvious to someone who writes JavaScript for a living? Shouldn’t be too hard to figure out in the context of what is a literal tutorial. Does the Observable environment make learning D3 difficult to learn? They’re fundamentally unrelated to the D3 concepts, so no. And finally, if you (understandably) find the concepts of D3 to be confusing, especially when presented via Observable, should you complain that it’s basically impossible to learn because the author (the same dude who wrote and continues to update the library for free) chooses to host his examples using unrelated software he also helped author? No, probably not. Unless you want to contribute (get it!?) to the worst bit of open-source: complaining. [0] http://letmegooglethat.com/?q=D3+tutorial http://letmegooglethat.com/?q=D3+tutorial
- jakecopp 6y ago
  Good points - I concede my argument is flawed. I agree that an open source project does not owe anyone detailed tutorials in their preferred format. I'll consider contributing to a vanilla JS D3 tutorial in future.

jwilber 6y ago

You admitted your original, “learning D3 without observable is basically impossible” was overblown, but follow up with, “Mike is dismissive... and learning D3 outside of Observable isn’t supported”. Let’s be clear, D3 is an open-source library. In no way, shape, or form is Mike required to support and produce tutorials for the language. The fact that what he has been kind enough to produce was done so using Observable has no bearing on your issue of “getting started with D3” when non-Observable tutorials abound. If you just google “D3 tutorial” you’ll see that all links but one point to non-Observable resources.[0] The article in Point 2 is a great one, but I'm not sure why you're linking it here. The implementation details are wholly unrelated to a) our discussion and b) whether or not it’s easy to port example D3 code to vanilla.js. It’s like someone arguing that porting Jupyter notebooks to Python scripts (something fairly chill to do) is difficult because of some unrelated implementation detail in Jupyter’s core code - the detail is irrelevant. To make sure I’m not just talking out of my ass, I just went through a few of the initial "learn D3 Observable" Google results that came up, and in literally all of them all you need to do is 1. remove any enclosing brackets (if they exist) and remove 2. remove calls to svg.node() and boom - you can paste everything into a script tag. Is that obvious to someone who doesn’t know D3 or Observable? Honestly, probably not. It can be clearer and I agree it should be spelled out somewhere (if it is, I don’t see it). Is it obvious to someone who writes JavaScript for a living? Shouldn’t be too hard to figure out in the context of what is a literal tutorial. Does the Observable environment make learning D3 difficult to learn? They’re fundamentally unrelated to the D3 concepts, so no. And finally, if you (understandably) find the concepts of D3 to be confusing, especially when presented via Observable, should you complain that it’s basically impossible to learn because the author (the same dude who wrote and continues to update the library for free) chooses to host his examples using unrelated software he also helped author? No, probably not. Unless you want to contribute (get it!?) to the worst bit of open-source: complaining. [0] http://letmegooglethat.com/?q=D3+tutorial http://letmegooglethat.com/?q=D3+tutorial

jakecopp 6y ago
Good points - I concede my argument is flawed. I agree that an open source project does not owe anyone detailed tutorials in their preferred format. I'll consider contributing to a vanilla JS D3 tutorial in future.