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Processing: A Programming Handbook For Visual Designers: Reviewed by Rob Harle (Australia)

Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists is a 710 page comprehensive book that teaches the Processing programming language. The reviewer provides high praise for the book, calling it a "marvellous gem" that is rare in its clarity for teaching computer programming. The companion Processing software is also easy to download and install, allowing the reader to have working programs within minutes of starting the book. The Processing language is designed specifically for visual artists and designers to create images, animations, and interactive projects with code rather than commercial software. The book is highly recommended for any artist interested in using programming for their creative work.

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78 views

Processing: A Programming Handbook For Visual Designers: Reviewed by Rob Harle (Australia)

Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists is a 710 page comprehensive book that teaches the Processing programming language. The reviewer provides high praise for the book, calling it a "marvellous gem" that is rare in its clarity for teaching computer programming. The companion Processing software is also easy to download and install, allowing the reader to have working programs within minutes of starting the book. The Processing language is designed specifically for visual artists and designers to create images, animations, and interactive projects with code rather than commercial software. The book is highly recommended for any artist interested in using programming for their creative work.

Uploaded by

Luisa
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers

by Casey Reas and Ben Fry


MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 2007
pp. 710, illus. hardcover, $43 USD
ISBN 978-0-262-18262-1

Reviewed by Rob Harle (Australia)

[email protected]

Why did we have to wait so long for this marvellous gem? It is indeed rare to
find a technical book of such clarity and insight, and especially so in books
concerning computer programming. I’ve grappled with many programming
books over the years in an effort to teach myself programming and none
come close to Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers
and Artists. Casey Reas and Ben Fry are to be congratulated on two counts.
Firstly, for writing this 710 page comprehensive book, and secondly for
producing the associated open-source programming language software, also
called Processing, which is a companion to the book so to speak.

The reader is directed on page nine to go to the Processing web site


(www.processing.org/download) to download the software. After so many
frustrating attempts in the past to download so-called, free software, I
approached the web with intrepidation and cynicism. I thought at this stage,
doesn’t matter how good the book is, if the software is hard to obtain and
install it will be pretty much useless. My fears were completely unfounded.
Within fifteen minutes I had downloaded the 32 megabyte package for
Windows (it is available for Mac and Linux as well), and installed it effortlessly.
After a further ten minutes I had my first program, as per instructions in the
book, up and running.

The Processing language was written specifically for visual artists and
designers whether they be interested in producing still images, animation or
interactivity using their own programming efforts, rather than relying on
commercially available software applications. For those artists who use
computers in their work and like to have control at a fundamental level this
book will be a revelation and worth every cent it costs. I was stunned at how
few lines of code are required to produce complex images, one such example
is a colour wheel. The software comes loaded with numerous examples of
what can be achieved with Processing using existing modules of code.

Processing was created in the spirit of the open-source software movement


which not only results in free programs but also encourages social networking
and users to play and experiment. For the few who do not know what open-
source is (you must have been holidaying on Mars for the past tens years) do
a search on the net and be prepared to be amazed. Artists need to be mindful
not to forsake their final artistic creations in the wake of becoming absorbed or
obsessed in writing code. This can quite easily happen in the arduous and
lengthy task of learning the more complex languages such as C++.
Processing gets results fast, seems to be naturally intuitive and due to Reas
and Fry’s brilliance, easy to learn.

As the back cover states, “Tutorial units make up the bulk of the book and
introduce the syntax and concepts of software (including variables, functions,
and object-oriented programming)”. “More advanced professional projects
from such domains as animation, performance, and typography are discussed
in interviews with their creators”. For artists interested in creating programs
that run devices in an artistic installation there is an introductory section on
electronics (Extension 8, pp. 633- 659) which provides enough basic
knowledge to get you started in microcontrollers, basic robotics and sensors
to control motion, sound and lighting. This section includes examples of code
and types of controllers to purchase. There are chapters specifically on mobile
software applications, networking, creating 3D applications, printing and of
great importance to my own work, high-resolution file exporting.

This book is so well thought out and referenced it is quite astonishing. For
example, there is a general Index and a Code Index. Numerous Appendices
cover such basic, though important topics as, code comparisons, reserved
code words and programming languages. There is even a table of contents,
then a Contents by Category and further, an Extended Contents section.
These sections enable the reader to quickly find exactly what they are looking
for without ploughing through the whole book sequentially. Processing has
numerous illustrations both black & white and colour. The smaller images
accompany examples of code-text to illustrate what the code produces on the
screen, larger images are examples of actual art produced using more
extensive modules of code by a variety of artists.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough, all I wish is that it was written
ten years ago. I’m sure, like me, many artists who have wanted to experiment
with computer control and programming for artistic projects have been
frustrated to the limit by poorly written, obscurely referenced and inappropriate
programming books and languages. This book remedies all this and is even
very reasonably priced. All I can say to Casey Reas and Ben Fry is — Thank
you.

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