In this chapter, we will create our first bar chart using D3.js and SVG; however, to get there, we will have to go through some basics. These basic concepts are very important because they will give you the freedom to create visualizations for almost everything that you have in your mind. The more of them you know and understand, the more crazy things you can do with D3.
D3.js is a powerful JavaScript library for data-driven DOM manipulations and includes predefined abstractions, transformations, and helpers to work with SVG elements. This makes it an excellent library to write interactive data visualization components using web standards and the complete capabilities of modern web browsers.
Don't worry if you think that this definition is full of fancy buzzwords because in this section, we will walk through all of them. You will understand exactly what they mean and why this makes D3 and SVG a great combination to create visualizations.