D3 for the Impatient: Interactive Graphics for Programmers and Scientists

by Philipp K Janert

If you’re in a hurry to learn D3.js, the leading JavaScript library for web-based graphics and visualization, this book is for you. Written for technically savvy readers with a background in programming or data science, the book moves quickly, emphasizing unifying concepts and patterns. Anticipating common difficulties, author Philipp K. Janert teaches you how to apply D3 to your own problems. Assuming only a general programming background, but no previous experience with contemporary web development, this book explains supporting technologies such as SVG, HTML5, CSS, and the DOM as needed, making it a convenient one-stop resource for a technical audience.

Genres: Design, Programming, Technology

256 pages, Paperback

Published June 11, 2019

Reviews

[Ricardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

D3js is one of the main libraries I use. I learned years ago like many, using examples and the documentation. I always felt I needed some more background this book did the trick.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is hands-down the most comprehensive introduction to d3 that I've come across. It's a great resource for those folks who are familiar with JavaScript (e.g. arrow functions), but aren't familiar with d3's idioms (e.g., the enter()/update()/exit() cycle). I've found few resources on d3 that are really geared towards this middle-ground of audience, but d3 for the Impatient fits the bill well. The examples given in the book are quite concise and can easily be run with very little boilerplate.

I would caution that trying to sit down and go through the whole book in one go can be a bit daunting if you're not already familiar with d3's API and/or you have specific questions about how to accomplish certain tasks in d3. The chapters each cover a specific area of d3, so if you don't plan on using those parts of d3 (e.g., colormaps, curve drawing), you'll probably be better off skipping those chapters.

Overall, I think any JavaScript developer can walk away from this book with at least a good high-level understanding of d3's API and the reasoning behind its architecture.

[Darren Radford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent resource, sometimes crashes Kindle

Excellent info on D3 for those with some programming experience. Not a beginner’s book, which is exactly what I was looking for.
As mentioned in another review, the Kindle version sometimes crashes (I was using the iPad Kindle app). Toggling the “continuous text” feature helped to get past some problematic spots that appeared to cause a crash. Reading in the Amazon Cloud Reader also helped.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could certainly find flaws in it, but really I wish there were more technical books like this one. No fluff, just the essentials. I may not "know" D3 now (mostly because I read this in small bits over a couple months and didn't work through the examples), but I feel a LOT better equipped to navigate through it.

[Artur · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great guidebook explaining the inner working and common use cases of D3 along with, most importantly, D3 ideology in a clear and concise manner. Reading it through might be a bit tedious unless you try to do all the examples yourself and play around to get a feel of different topics, but if you have no time and need to learn D3 quick just read first 4 chapters and then consult the book on the areas you are interested in piece by piece be it colors, network graphs, scales or events. Well worth it for anybody using D3 for complex visualizations.

[Povilas Balciunas · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a relatively concise book about D3JS that assumes some programming skills and skips lengthy introductions. I would argue that it could be even shorter eliminating some of the API descriptions.

However, it does a good job explaining the basic concepts and how they connect together.

It would've been lovely if the example code was in TypeScript.

[Andre Hernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome writing. Examples very practical and clear. It does require some time to grasp the later topics. The Mandelbrot example was my favorite.
Overall easy to follow while coding.
Some parts are not up to date specially with the mouse events on drag, but you get the hang of it.