
The Nature of Code - bpierre
http://natureofcode.com/book/introduction/
======
euphemize
This is a great resource by Daniel Shiffman. For those who don't know, The
Nature of Code was a kickstarter project[0] (he also wrote "Learning
Processing" a while ago), and I've contributed to it for the following reason:
I've been around people in the arts field a lot, and when it comes to teaching
them programming from scratch, nothing beats processing. I'm a huge fan of
other languages for my day-to-day use, but for teaching people who have never
seen code before, processing is fantastic. (it might not be a coincidence that
Daniel works in a Fine Arts department)

There's incredible power in being able to immediately visualize any data
structure with such ease. You only need to understand that there's a "setup"
function, and a "run-all-the-time-while-this-window-is-open" function (draw),
and tell people to jam whatever code they want in there, it will be executed
from top to bottom. The result? Usually, incredibly messy code with gigantic
nested loops everywhere - but students were invariably _learning things_ , and
once in a while, having fun too. Books like these are really important because
they give learners a starting point, something to mess around with - which is
usually all they need to get started.

This looks great, I'll be going through it soon.

[0] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shiffman/the-nature-
of-...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shiffman/the-nature-of-code-book-
project)

~~~
doff
Not a fine arts department, but rather a school for creative technologists:
[http://itp.nyu.edu](http://itp.nyu.edu).

~~~
euphemize
Right, though it's part of the "Tisch School of the Arts".

------
krzrak
What this website lacks is the information commonly found on the back of the
book cover: what this book is about?

~~~
optymizer
It's in the 'Preface' chapter:
[http://natureofcode.com/book/preface/](http://natureofcode.com/book/preface/)

~~~
krzrak
Indeed, thanks. It's strange, that link on the homepage, which invites to
start reading skips the preface.

------
frbr
Wonderful book! On L-systems: The Sierpinski triangle is used in fractal
antennas which dramatically improve signal strength. There is a program called
Terragen which procedurally generates entire planets with atmosphere and
vegetation, in 1:1 scale.
[https://vimeo.com/3611863](https://vimeo.com/3611863)

------
kachnuv_ocasek
Is anyone else having trouble scrolling by dragging the scrollbar when at the
top of the page?

~~~
shiffman
what browser / os? you can file bug report here:
[https://github.com/shiffman/natureofcode.com/issues](https://github.com/shiffman/natureofcode.com/issues)

------
jamesbritt
Previous discussion

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4709551](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4709551)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5153895](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5153895)

------
loz220
this book in video form:
[http://vimeo.com/channels/natureofcode](http://vimeo.com/channels/natureofcode)

~~~
69_years_and
The videos are awesome, never a dull moment. Daniel is a real character and
presents the material well.

------
efm
Processing.org has a lot of examples of the variety of art projects made with
processing.

