Ira Greenberg - Processing: Creative Coding and Generative Art in Processing 2

Processing

Creative Coding and Generative Art in Processing 2

Ira Greenberg, Dianna Xu, Deepak Kumar

PROCESSING

Copyright 2013 by Ira Greenberg, Dianna Xu, Deepak Kumar

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ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-4302-4464-6

ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4302-4465-3

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The front cover image was generated by the Processing sketch noise.pde found in .

Credits

President and Publisher: Paul Manning

Lead Editor: Ben Renow-Clarke

Technical Reviewer: Ryan Rusnak

Editorial Board: Steve Anglin, Mark Beckner, Ewan Buckingham, Gary Cornell, Louise Corrigan, Morgan Ertel, Jonathan Gennick, Jonathan Hassell, Robert Hutchinson, Michelle Lowman, James Markham, Matthew Moodie, Jeff Olson, Jeffrey Pepper, Douglas Pundick, Ben Renow-Clarke, Dominic Shakeshaft, Gwenan Spearing, Matt Wade, Tom Welsh

Coordinating Editor: Anamika Panchoo

Copy Editors: Michele Bowman, Linda Seifert

Compositor: SPi Global

Indexer: SPi Global

Artist: SPi Global

Cover Image Artist: Corn van Dooren

Cover Designer: Anna Ishchenko

To Robin, Ian, and Sophie, and to Hilary, Jerry, and Eric
Ira Greenberg

To Marcus and Kira
Dianna Xu

To Debika and Sameer
Deepak Kumar

Contents at a Glance

Contents

Foreword

One of the very best things about writing a book is the opportunity it presents to meet new people. After the release of Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art, in June 2007, I received many thoughtful notes from creative coders around the world. Most of these readers, similar to me, came from the arts and were just discovering the exciting creative potential of code. I also received some notes from professional programmers and computer scientists, which at the time was very surprising. As a self-taught coder, I wasnt sure what I could offer trained computing professionals, or even if I would be taken seriously.

Two of the computer scientists I met at the time were Deepak Kumar and Dianna Xu, both professors in the Department of Computer Science at Bryn Mawr College. Deepak and I first communicated (virtually) in the Processing online forum, during a somewhat heated discussion thread about the disconnect between the creative coding and computer science communities, especially within academia. You can read the original thread at: http://processing.org/discourse/beta/num_1212418008.html . Near the end of the thread Deepak graciously extended an open invitation to visit Bryn Mawr, to present Processing and explore the connections between our two communities. What especially motivated me to follow-up on Deepaks invitation was the last sentence of his comment:

Lets work together and see how we can bring about some radical change!

During my initial visit to Bryn Mawr I met Dianna and Deepak. Though I had been coding for a fairly long time by now and had regular interactions with computer science faculty from the institution where I was teaching, it was still intimidating sitting across the table from themwith actual PhDs in Computer Sciencebut it was also equally exhilarating! Dianna and Deepak were very seriously exploring new ways to teach Computer Science, including how to make programming more engaging and accessible to the widest possible audience. They had been very successful pioneering an earlier approach utilizing robots in the introductory computing classroom. It was such a thrill to learn about their work and to be able to talk so intensively about coding and computer science pedagogy. Though we started from very different placesthe arts and computer sciencewe somehow ended up in a pretty similar place, with a shared passion for presenting computation as a powerfully creative and fascinating medium, and spreading the word to future generations.

Over the next few years, Deepak, Dianna, and I worked closely presenting lectures and workshops on Processing and our emerging creative coding approach. We were very fortunate to receive funding from the National Science Foundation enabling us to more formally explore our approach in the Computer Science 1 (CS1) classroom, which we did at our respective schools. During this period we also began discussing the idea for a new CS1 book, based on Processing and creative coding. These discussions, along with the result of our research, directly led to the creation of the book youre holding in your hands.

This book is a departure from the existing Processing and CS1 literature in that it attempts to present the spirit and excitement of creative coding, while rigorously covering the fundamentals taught in the CS1 classroom. We structured the book to be useful to the autodidact, but equally useful to the CS1 instructor, at both the secondary and post-secondary levels. Weve each had very positive results utilizing the books approach within our own classrooms and are very excited to now help others do the same.