

Composable, declarative data structures for building complex visualizations - williamstein
http://ioam.github.io/holoviews/

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danso
This is very cool...I hate to say that I sometimes judge a library (at first,
anyway) on the quality and depth of the documentation.

However, I have one ignorant-sounding question to ask: is this library meant
for general, run-of-the-mill visualizations, e.g. bar charts and scatter
plots, or is it intended for visualizations for a specific domain (of which
I'm not qualified for)...the mandelbrot example in the intro is cool
([http://ioam.github.io/holoviews/index.html](http://ioam.github.io/holoviews/index.html))
but I can't tell if it's meant to be first-impression-eye-candy or it covers a
visualization use-case that I've never had (which is very possible).

I'm sold to the idea of this being a composable and declarative system for
visualizations, even if I what I have in mind are simple
visualizations...because declarative, simple compositions can easily be made
into much deeper visualizations...basically, I'd be sold to anything that
makes making small-multiple-charts as easy as ggplot2 does. The docs make use
of a GridSpace layout, but they all involve bespoke designs and animations so
that it's hard to see the core code needed to form the layout...

So yes, I know having prosaic visualization examples can sometimes fail to
excite people, but I think there are a lot of programmers who are excited
enough by a good framework regardless of the visualizations :)

~~~
pbowyer
> is this library meant for general, run-of-the-mill visualizations, e.g. bar
> charts and scatter plots, or is it intended for visualizations for a
> specific domain

I'd say it's for a specific use-case: exploring problem domains and data where
you need multiple related visualizations. I don't think it's trying to be a
layout engine, so much as produce very good looking analysis charts. I could
see myself using it for image analysis and exploring time-series data, and
would have killed for a tool like this when I was in the lab.

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jdherman
Awesome, thanks for sharing. Out of curiosity, how are the embedded widgets
being handled? (something like
[https://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2013/12/05/static-
interactive...](https://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2013/12/05/static-interactive-
widgets/)) ?

