Comments on: Learning Processing, Simplicity, and Design: Keep it Stupid, Stupid

By: Create Digital Motion » Processing, Sketchbooks, and the Creative Ecosystem

Create Digital Motion » Processing, Sketchbooks, and the Creative Ecosystem — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:35:02 +0000

[...] want to highlight a comment from a recent story in which I was reflecting on how to approach Processing, and – in a larger [...]

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 07:05:22 +0000

My opinion – the problem with Processing is that is not part of a software ecosystem. Flash is aligned with Illustrator and After Effects et al., when the solution is not in one, it can help to rephrase the problem in another. When trying to create a piece of art I might sweep back and forwards between each, looking for the first jigsaw piece.

I always start with a vision of what I want to see and will then scribble it. The idea of code snippets as the START of something is just not interesting – I need to scribble, then refine. Processing reminds me of computer graphics from the bad old days pre – Amiga. Isolated and demanding.

While 'industry standards' are sacred cows, it's also true that some packages are popular because they appeal to a variety of users: the painter and the programmer.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:41:20 +0000

@Peter – If I had to take one consistent criticism that I heard a lot of, it was that for a non-programmer, it's difficult to debug in Processing. To many, there are no clues to what's going wrong.

I know this is hardly something that is unique to Processing, and I have heard the horror stories of people that had to do this 10+ years ago in programming environments that gave zero visual prompts for syntax errors, but perhaps this is something that needs to be addressed?

It may be as simple as really hammering home the building blocks to structuring code – which I think you're already on the right track with here for the Processing 101 page – or encouraging those working on Processing to establish clearer error reports in the Console.

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:25:23 +0000

I was just curious, though, if there was anything specific they found frustrating or that slowed them down, even having said that…

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:25:04 +0000

Well, of course, that's just absurd. I'm very fortunate in my class to have students who are new to all these tools in general, so they haven't yet formed that kind of closed-minded opinion. There's a certain point at which you may not be able to convince people — if they're thinking "tool = job" and not developing their skills, I wouldn't want to have to teach them Flash, either! (You do what you can, but that means you have to first kind of convince people that learning is a good thing…)

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:45:46 +0000

@ Peter – There were quite a few people which had experience with Flash (some with and some without Actionscript knowledge) and wanted to continue in that direction, rather than learn Processing.

Overall, there was a general perception that Flash was more likely to land you a paying job than Processing and so when the connection between Processing and successful work (commercial or otherwise) wasn't made, there was resentment toward being forced to learn code.

I don't think there were specific arguments made about which language is 'better', simply that one software package is considered more of an 'industry standard' – which I personally see as counter productive at university.

It didn't help that our course is quite broad, and so you already have a percentage of the student population who have absolutely zero interest in this world. Which is why I think it's so important to impress that Processing is a design tool, not simply a coding language.

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:54:18 +0000

For those 96 people, was there some specific grievance – particularly in relation to Flash coding, which in terms of syntax and even (in some aspects) capabilities is more similar than different? I'm just wondering what it was specifically that turned them off so badly, what they were trying to do, and what they prefer to do.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:49:21 +0000

@Peter – as spectacular as that would have been, they did stay to the end of the compulsory part of the subject – they just made their grievances loud and clear.

It's interesting now when I tell other students about the projects I'm working on, that they're initially excited, but then follow quickly with "but do you *have* to use Processing?". Their learning experience has been that negative.

Clearly, there is a lot of exciting work out there being done with Processing and it should be enticing to design students – as much as Flash websites that jump all over the place and 3D robots and aliens buzzing around in shiny spaceships.

I guess it's making the connection between a text-based coding interface and artistic output that is being lost – at least at my university.

By: Pavel Cervy

Pavel Cervy — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:36:37 +0000

Dear Peter,
I've been reading your blogs for about half a year, since I've discovered them trying to find something about Processing.
Now I've finished my first video with granular synthesis technique done in Processing. Here's a link: http://vimeo.com/6334913. It's for Nadja's "I Am As Earth" song.
I'm so much amazed, how clear you get to develop ideas with this tool. Few lines of code (usually) and suprising results.
Quite satisfied with this first experiment. Looking forward to new ones.

By: Jaime Munarriz

Jaime Munarriz — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:56:10 +0000

!
I have to think on this idea: I've been teaching Processing at the Fine Arts University for 5? years. Sometimes the students get really involved, sometimes they succeed, sometimes it is really too much for their artistic brains…
A change of focus could be a good idea, as I am always thinking on better ways to trasmit this skills and this way of solving problems…
I'll follow your course, of course!