On Sat 4 July at Bangalore, Arvind Satyanarayan is speaking at VizChitra 2026 - a talk I’m keenly looking forward to.
I’ve been following Arvind’s work since Vega-Lite. It’s a grammar of graphics - something that makes data visualizations (charts) more structured. I tried switching to it our default at Gramener - but most felt it was too much to learn (they already knew Excel/Power BI) or too limiting (D3 can do more).
With AI coding agents, the learning is less relevant - AI will write the code. So, do grammars have less relevance? Arvind’s talk is about how they might actually be more important - maybe like a structured way to prompt.
Quite looking forward to this. Do attend if you’re interested in the cutting edge of AI-driven chart generation.
Here are some questions I hope to ask Arvind:
- When someone hits the limit of a visualization grammar, but they know exactly what they want, what “escape” or extension mechanisms have you found most intuitive and useful?
- With GoFish, you re-built a grammar rather than updating one. Why? I mean, what smells or gaps in existing grammars made you decide that way?
- When YOU find a grammar limiting you, what tool(s) do you turn to today - and how do you work with them?