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> They even wrote a book about how they went about it (not that it speaks to the quality of the API)

Wilkinson’s Grammar of Graphics inspired ggplot. The textbook doesn’t even mention ggplot.

Shameless plug for my own GoG inspired DSL, Algraf:

https://williamcotton.github.io/algraf/demos

There’s a Minard plot in the demos!

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Oh… I assumed it was a further expansion of the ideas that with into ggplot as they all look like ggplot charts and ideas were identical

I wish I could edit my original comment to add this correction.

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nice, but did you expect it to not work on Safari (WASM fails)?
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Safari is my default browser and it seems to be working just fine!
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Have you checked out plotnine?

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rstudio/cheatsheets/main/p... it's made by the same people behind ggplot. Hadley Wickham worked for RStudio which also created plotnine.

plotnine is currently sponsored by Posit where Hadley works.

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To be fair, the Vega-lite backend is json mostly based on GG ideas.

In this vein, I think I prefer ggsql that made it to HN recently [0].

[0]: https://ggsql.org/

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Yeah Grammar of Graphics semantics are already very ideal for both humans and agents alike. Ggsql is a recent project that implements it as SQL user defined functions which is even more agent friendly

I dont see what this brings to the table

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Well, for that hand-drawn charm if you're willing to use METAPOST there is:

https://github.com/jemmybutton/fiziko

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How would you quantify the magic of these older charts? What is it that makes them have charm and character?
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I made this a while back never finished it, but it’s a slide show of the different styles of graphics the RBA used over time

https://x.com/Angus_KST/status/2057757395196293262/video/1?s...

It’s incomplete but it show cases some of what I mean. There’s just a lot more charm in these earlier graphics. I’m fairly certain they had to consider how the different colours of ink bleed on one another.

Like take 1978 for example, this might be some kind of highlighter ink, and when the colours over lap the grid they interact in ways most overlapping geometry don’t in charting libraries (but in CSS you can get a similar effect with mix-blend-mode: multiply)

https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/annual-reports/rba/1978/...

If you go to page 159 of the most recent RBA report, you’ll see otherwise clean clear charts that do a good job of communicating the relevant information (perhaps that’s all there should do from such an institution), but it’s admittedly soulless compared to the charts from previous decades

https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/annual-reports/rba/2025/...

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not the parent, but one thing i find charming is that a lot of them have a really good feel for line weight and inking style, and vary it interestingly in various parts of the plot. computer generated charts tend to have a much more uniform line weight.
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Note that if you are affiliated with a University you probably can download a pdf of the book in the link for free.
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Yeah that's how I got a copy, found it on my unis digital library.
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