I like to make a periphery, not critical comment to excellent presentation of Melody Meckfessel.
The Download or Fork or Like numbers for the software developers are not any good measures of how important or useful a particular software is. This is the most important number for the Post-Jim Clark American VCs which serves their short-lived financial goals, but we as the simple minded engineers who use the terrific platform like Observable do not care about!
I will use anything Bostock might design, whether 10 downloads or 10M. It does not matter to me.
Bostock’s software architecture is one of the most modern and useful ones we have seen over the years.
I do not know him, and no reason to make such favorable statements, but I like to pioneer a new culture for our community to uproot the uneconomical VC rhetoric:
Focus on the merit of the design and focus on the usefulness of the software, focus on the reuse potential, focus on training new novice programs using the platform. Do not mind how many people downloaded the software! Focus on the prospect customers’ view of the software platform.
Dara