Description on the Processing website: "Processing is a context for exploring the emerging conceptual space enabled by electronic media. It is an environment for learning the fundamentals of computer programming within the context of the electronic arts and it is an electronic sketchbook for developing ideas. "
Here's a tutorial for Flash and Director users.
I saw some of the demos on Robert Hodgin's website, and it made me smile the way Flash hasn't for awhile now. From what I've read so far, Processing offers a simplified IDE for writing pseudo-java code; more specifically, a simplified graphics and timing API on top of Java 1.1. I would highly recommend this for anyone teaching beginner computer graphics (I'm still a beginner myself in primitive graphics programming). Not very useful for UI and application development, but like the official description says, it's more like a sketchbook for fun experiments.
In other news, I'm still pushing the limits of Flash Communication Server at my 9-5 job. The Macromedia engineers would feel pleased that their product is being used to its fullest potential. Doing a google search for "Jack Kemp AIU" will lead to press releases, but there's more than meets the eye... making it look easy takes so much work.
Remember how I spent a long time working on hooking up a Mindstorms robot to FlashCom? As much as I learned about robotics and Java from the project, it didn't meet my needs. I found a low-cost, high-functionality solution from the folks who sell TrackerCam. I hacked it to use the applet/PHP for pan-tilt control while integrated into a Flash/FlashCom application using the FCS Framework. The trackercam software comes with remote video streaming, and the license says you can't redistribute it or redistribute modifications or something like that, so I won't post my code here. I will post my PROCESSING experiments sometime this weekend as soon as I download the software and make a few sketches. It's time to redesign this website anyways :-)
Posted by samuel at September 27, 2003 06:18 PM