Coming from matplotlib, I found Makie such a breath of fresh air. The API is just as (if not more) flexible but way more predictable. Their layout system in particular is amazing. I think it bundles it's own constraint engine?
Congrats on the new website!
PS. Thanks to the Makie team for the shoutout to my corner plot package in the ecosystem section!
To be fair, matplotlib is pretty awful (the API, I mean). I think it might be the worst library I have ever worked with... Though perhaps I'm repressing some memories there.
The best plotting APIs I have seen are those from MATLAB and Mathematica. I have used Makie a few times, and it is very flexible and well designed.
I am hoping they provide a declarative API that emulates Gadfly more closely. Gadfly is great for simple statistics, sort of a Julia equivalent to ggplot2.
Matplotlib is heavily inspired by MATLAB's plotting, no? Its pyplot submodule is a wrapper around the base OO API which is an almost exact clone of matlab.
Matlab and Mathematica are awesome. Gadfly had a great API but suffered greatly from Julia's ttfp problem. Tried makie, looked good but that was around when I left Julia (just because other langs paid). VegaLite is pretty amazing.
I'm coming from matplotlib too, though I lack the experience to judge whether its API is any good or not. I just use it. ;-) Much as I love Python, there's always that question lingering in the back of my mind, as to what comes after Python. A compelling plot library would be a major factor.
PS. Thanks to the Makie team for the shoutout to my corner plot package in the ecosystem section!