Even in the Era AI, GGPlot's API is still the best charting API

Note that if you are affiliated with a University you probably can download a pdf of the book in the link for free.

> They even wrote a book about how they went about it (not that it speaks to the quality of the API) Wilkinson’s Grammar of Graphics inspired ggplot. The textbook doesn’t even mention ggplot. Shameless plug for my own GoG inspired DSL, Algraf: https://williamcotton.github.io/algraf/demos There’s a Minard plot in the demos!

To be fair, the Vega-lite backend is json mostly based on GG ideas. In this vein, I think I prefer ggsql that made it to HN recently [0]. [0]: https://ggsql.org/

How would you quantify the magic of these older charts? What is it that makes them have charm and character?

Well, for that hand-drawn charm if you're willing to use METAPOST there is: https://github.com/jemmybutton/fiziko

Yeah Grammar of Graphics semantics are already very ideal for both humans and agents alike. Ggsql is a recent project that implements it as SQL user defined functions which is even more agent friendly I dont see what this brings to the table

Have you checked out plotnine? https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rstudio/cheatsheets/main/p... it's made by the same people behind ggplot. Hadley Wickham worked for RStudio which also created plotnine. plotnine is currently sponsored by Posit where Hadley works.