The Trouble with D3
I worked on a project that required some pretty standard line charts, but with the addition of an overlaid set of horizontal "benchmark" lines -- and some callouts. After struggling (and failing) to get what we wanted out of two different off-the-shelf graphing libraries (one of which was built on top of D3), we finally bit the bullet and just built the charts we wanted in D3 "from scratch". Once I wrapped my head around the model, it was such a pleasant experience. D3 is soooo nice and well thought out. You mayneed to level up in SVG, but it is so freeing to be able to bind data and display it basically any way you want. In hindsight, I wish we started with D3 from the beginning and I would not hesitate to pick it up for even simple charts again. It really is worth climbing the learning curve, which isn't as big and scary as it appears at first sight.