
Why I use ggplot2 - var_explained
http://varianceexplained.org/r/why-I-use-ggplot2/
======
minimaxir
A somewhat off topic note: that gganimate GIF is _3.5 MB_ , which is a very
large file for a image that is not central to the argument!

That's one of the reasons I was dissuaded from making GIFs from my ggplot2
charts, and it's why I created a Convert Frames to GIF tool
([https://github.com/minimaxir/frames-to-gif-
osx](https://github.com/minimaxir/frames-to-gif-osx)) to create higher-quality
GIFs at manageable file sizes. (the first example GIF in my repo is about the
same number of frames and resolution as the OP's GIF, but 1/7th of the
filesize, of course due to the nature of GIFs this is not a straight
comparison) That said, gganimate does sound like an interesting tool, and
certainly much better than the animation package alone.

The killer feature of ggplot2 that cannot easily be replicated in any GUI
program is indeed faceting. There are also other geoms that are hard to do in
base R/excel are things, like contour maps and native smoothed regression
lines (with confidence intervals!)

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th0ma5
Python's matplotlib was apparently good enough for the Gravitational Wave
paper.

I think both this post and the post it is arguing against are actually arguing
the same thing... You have to think about what you are communicating and not
just plot out things and say you're done.

~~~
minimaxir
matplotlib is a bit off-topic for comparing R packages.

No one is saying that either base or ggplot2 is _insufficient_ for academic
analysis, but one may be more practical than the other.

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baldfat
I have found that base R graphics were a quick way to get a snapshot of things
qplot always frustrated me in their syntax. I have replaced that with ggvis. I
can do a 3 seconds of code and get a decent plot. I can then add a drop down
menu and explore my data, but ggvis is guilty of Jeff Leek's criticism
currently with a limit of the plot you can perform. Also ggvis exported to png
is more a hassle then it is worth for me.

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kldavenport
A fantastic set of APIs with Matplotlib under the hood: Seaborn

Http://stanford.edu/~mwaskom/software/seaborn/

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chaosfox
for heatmaps with dendrograms there is ggdendro:
[https://plot.ly/ggplot2/ggdendro-
dendrograms/](https://plot.ly/ggplot2/ggdendro-dendrograms/)

but it's definitely not a streamlined experience.. most of the time I just use
pheatmap:
[https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/pheatmap/index.html](https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/pheatmap/index.html)

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dang
Earlier post was discussed at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11081961](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11081961).

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keypusher
Honorable mention for yhat's port of ggplot2 to python.
[http://ggplot.yhathq.com/](http://ggplot.yhathq.com/)

~~~
scott_s
Do you have experience with it? If yes, do you prefer it over matplotlib
(assuming you have experience with that)?

~~~
glial
I have used it some, and my experience usually runs like this: (try simple
thing) "Hey, it works!" (try slightly more complicated thing) "Too bad, this
isn't implemented yet".

