There are a hundred and one ways to build data visualizations. You've worked with some of them - tools like DataWrapper, software like Illustrator, and now you'll start to use the programming language JavaScript.
But saying "building visuals using JavaScript" is a lot like saying "processing data with Python" – it can mean a thousand things! Using pandas to bring in a CSV file, scraping with BeautifulSoup, clicking around a site with Selenium, converting a PDF using Camelot... it's less a game of learning JavaScript and more a game of learning the tools.
A meaningful shift when moving from Python to JavaScript isn't just that the language look a little different – indentation vs braces, variables_like_this becoming variablesLikeThis , etc – it's that the whole ecosystem is different.
Instead of having a few common, popular libraries, JavaScript is fragmented into a zillion and one separate libraries, with rarely a clear winner. And even when there is, things are fast-paced enough than in two years there'll probably be a different winner!
- Basic D3 as commonly used in small newsrooms, for fundamentals
- Observable-based D3, as commonly used for prototyping
- Command-line/Node-based visuals development, to gain the fundamentals of modern JavaScript development
- A custom build system as used in larger newsrooms, so you can make cool things very quickly
As we progress through the semester we'll take a look at each of those. First in brief and then, later, more deeply.
Ask a hundred questions, but know that we'll also dig into them later on.