Hi! I'm Mike Bostock, creator of D3.js and a former graphics editor for
The New York Times. I do data visualization, design and open source.
AMA!
Abstract
Hey-o! I created D3, a popular open-source JavaScript library for
visualizing data. Until recently, I was also a graphics editor for The
New York Times, where I helped produce a variety of data visualizations
(such as Is It Better to Rent or Buy? and 512 Paths to the White House),
maps (The Most Detailed Maps You’ll See From the Midterm Elections), and
articles (A Game of Shark and Minnow). I write occasionally (Visualizing
Algorithms, How To Scroll). You can see more of my work on my website
and Twitter. I studied information visualization at Stanford, though it
seems increasingly unlikely that I will finish my PhD. I got my BSE in
Computer Science from Princeton, and I worked at a handful of tech
companies prior to my stint as a newspaperman. The first code I wrote
was a chat program for the TI-82 graphing calculator; you could send one
letter at a time over a 2-foot serial cable. It wasn’t very useful. The
last code I wrote was to compute the smallest enclosing circle for a set
of circles. So far, that hasn’t been very useful either. These days I’m
focused on the next major release of D3. My wife and I had our second
child in July, though, so most of my time lately has been just takin’
care of the family. Here’s proof it’s me. So, yeah. I like infovis,
maps, algorithms, javascript, design, video games, pretty colors that
move… Ask me anything! I’ll be back at 1 PM ET / 10 AM PT to
answer your questions. Edit: Wow, so many questions! Thank you. I’m
starting to answer now. Keep ’em comin’! Edit 2:30 PM ET / 5:30 PM ET:
Still here, still answering questions! Sorry I’m slow. Edit 4:15 PM PT:
Thanks for all the questions! I gotta go now, but I’ll try to answer
more questions later tonight. If I missed your question, I apologize.
I’m @mbostock on Twitter if you want to ask anything else.