Making a Plot: Pgfplot or Tikz [closed]

Question

I find two possible ways in drawing a graph out of data points: Using PGFPlots with

 \begin{axis}
 \addplot[smooth,color=red,mark=x]

or the Data Visualization inside Tikz (p. 756 in the manual):

\datavisualization [school book axes, visualize as smooth line]

It seems that I could use both machnics for creating my easiy graphic, however is one approach much better or are both the same as they based both on tikz and just have different syntax? Which one is better for future compatibility or is more flexibel?

I just want to make an 2d axis with two graphs and 20 datapoints each, so just very basic things.

Answer 1

I use the operations described in section 22.2 "The Plot Path Operation", and those seem to work very well for me. As I'm already using TikZ for many other things, I find it easiest to stick with just one thing to learn.