I really want to use D3 but my target market is non-US (heavy windows use) and non-technical users. For that reason, it is hard for me to push them to change their browsers away from IE.
Do you have any recommendations for getting D3 (really SVG) to work on IE? It seems like there was a hacky way to do this in protovis but in d3 it is difficult. Do you assume people will simply not use SVG and use the DOM instead? Chrome frame?
By IE, I assume you mean IE8-; IE9 has an excellent SVG implementation, and IE10 continues to improve.
Chrome Frame is an excellent option, especially now that it doesn't require administrator privileges to install. I wish I could recommend SVG Web, but it's still work to use, and necessarily slow. You can use D3 without SVG, but there are other DOM incompatibilities with IE8-, and besides, you can't do much interesting stuff without fast JavaScript and vector graphics. (And if you're generating static graphics, there are easier ways.)
The best option, of course, is to do whatever you can to get your users to switch to a modern, standards-compliant browser. If we all move forward together, it gets easier.
What's your target market? Last time I checked few countries stats and I found out that the U.S market is actually using IE heavily compared to emerging markets (like North Africa, Philippine...)
20K minified and gzipped. You can also make custom builds using the provided Makefile. (And maybe use something like Ender for an even more specific build?)
http://mbostock.github.com/d3/talk/20111018/
A while back, I also gave a talk on D3's force layouts:
http://mbostock.github.com/d3/talk/20110921/ (slides) http://vimeo.com/29458354 (video)
If you have questions about D3, I'd be happy to answer them here or in the d3-js Google group.