Discussion: auto-generated API from JSON about altair HOT 5 CLOSED

First correction: it looks like there is a package for JSON schema validation: http://ropensci.github.io/jsonvalidate/

from altair.

@eibanez Thanks for the review of the python approach! I am very intrigued by what they are doing but haven't had a chance to really dive in deeply into the underlying implementation. I think a native R approach auto-generated from the JSON would be really awesome, but quite a large undertaking to do as well as altair.

I also think that such an approach should not be incorporated into this package -- the vegalite package might be a better home for it (or a new package altogether). This package (correct my if I am wrong @ijlyttle) intends to be a faithful port of the altair package itself. Ideally this other effort could leverage the rendering functionality that has been built here and is likely going to be spun off into its own package.

I'll note that as someone that uses both R and Python, I'm really appreciating this package and the fact that it isn't more of a 'native R experience' in that it makes it very easy to switch between plotting in python and R 😄 But I see the advantages of a different approach for those that don't know or use Python...

Re validation, in the vegalite R package I added in a schema validation function:

https://github.com/hrbrmstr/vegalite/blob/master/R/validate.r

using jsonvalidate. I also experimented with zschema, and it was easy to wrap that into R using V8 package. One nice feature with that library is that it allows validation of sub-schemas (which I think jsonvalidate does not). I think that becomes useful if you have functions that generate part of a schema (e.g. alt$X)

from altair.

I agree that the altair package should remain as-is. It's very valuable and, once the vegalite portion is spun off, it should be easy to maintain (if it's kept as a thin wrapper).

Currently, jsonvalidate is not suited to test v2 of vega-lite schemas, as they appear to use a newer version of JSON-schema (draft-06). Anyway, I played with ajv and it seems to work, providing errors that are similar to the vega online editor.

I will leave this open for a little while and, if I have time and make progress, move the discussion over to the vegalite or propose next steps.

from altair.

As @AliciaSchep said, I am presently working on spinning-off the renderer into its own package (https://github.com/vegawidget/vegawidget) - so that it can be used elsewhere.

I would like the altair package to remain dedicated to porting the python package - it gets us "R users" into the Vega-Lite world, and I like that it has a limited mandate.

I agree that a native R implementation would be a separate package (and one that I would look forward to using and helping out with). Such a separate package would be very welcome to be hosted in the vegawidget organization. I don't know how this proposed new functionality would relate to the existing vegalite package - or if it would be a completely new thing - that question is completely out of my hands.

from altair.

Makes total sense. I might close this issue (as it's not really one) but feel free to add comments with related developments.

from altair.