6 ms·

The Nature of Code

193 points by bpierre 12y ago

jamesbritt 12y ago
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 12y ago
this book in video form: http://vimeo.com/channels/natureofcode http://vimeo.com/channels/natureofcode
- 69_years_and 12y ago
  The videos are awesome, never a dull moment. Daniel is a real character and presents the material well.
kachnuv_ocasek 12y ago
Is anyone else having trouble scrolling by dragging the scrollbar when at the top of the page?
- shiffman 12y ago
  what browser / os? you can file bug report here: https://github.com/shiffman/natureofcode.com/issues https://github.com/shiffman/natureofcode.com/issues
- visarga 12y ago
  Me too. I am on Chrome on OSX 10.9.3.
euphemize 12y ago
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-code-book-project https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shiffman/the-nature-of-...
- doff 12y ago
  Not a fine arts department, but rather a school for creative technologists: http://itp.nyu.edu http://itp.nyu.edu.
  - euphemize 12y ago
    Right, though it's part of the "Tisch School of the Arts".
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  The great thing about this book is that it's not just for Processing. It has the most accessible descriptions of vector fields, genetic algorithms, neural networks (etc) that I've seen anywhere.
templeos2 12y ago
NIST quantum random numbers http://www.nist.gov/itl/csd/ct/nist_beacon.cfm http://www.nist.gov/itl/csd/ct/nist_beacon.cfm Dumb fucken nigger. What does a government random number site produce? Random fucken number, stupid fucken nigger. Take number modulo (remainder) 100,000 for line number in Bible. Fucken stupid fucken nigger. You can verify my numbers by going to NIST and getting the number for that minute in question. Unix timestamp for the minute. Stupid fucken nigger.
krzrak 12y ago
What this website lacks is the information commonly found on the back of the book cover: what this book is about?
- optymizer 12y ago
  It's in the 'Preface' chapter: http://natureofcode.com/book/preface/ http://natureofcode.com/book/preface/
  - krzrak 12y ago
    Indeed, thanks. It's strange, that link on the homepage, which invites to start reading skips the preface.
efm 12y ago
Processing.org has a lot of examples of the variety of art projects made with processing.
frbr 12y ago
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

193 points by bpierre 12y ago

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 12y ago

this book in video form: http://vimeo.com/channels/natureofcode http://vimeo.com/channels/natureofcode

69_years_and 12y ago
The videos are awesome, never a dull moment. Daniel is a real character and presents the material well.

kachnuv_ocasek 12y ago

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

shiffman 12y ago
what browser / os? you can file bug report here: https://github.com/shiffman/natureofcode.com/issues https://github.com/shiffman/natureofcode.com/issues
visarga 12y ago
Me too. I am on Chrome on OSX 10.9.3.

euphemize 12y ago

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-code-book-project https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shiffman/the-nature-of-...

doff 12y ago
Not a fine arts department, but rather a school for creative technologists: http://itp.nyu.edu http://itp.nyu.edu.
- euphemize 12y ago
  Right, though it's part of the "Tisch School of the Arts".
TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
The great thing about this book is that it's not just for Processing. It has the most accessible descriptions of vector fields, genetic algorithms, neural networks (etc) that I've seen anywhere.

templeos2 12y ago

NIST quantum random numbers http://www.nist.gov/itl/csd/ct/nist_beacon.cfm http://www.nist.gov/itl/csd/ct/nist_beacon.cfm Dumb fucken nigger. What does a government random number site produce? Random fucken number, stupid fucken nigger. Take number modulo (remainder) 100,000 for line number in Bible. Fucken stupid fucken nigger. You can verify my numbers by going to NIST and getting the number for that minute in question. Unix timestamp for the minute. Stupid fucken nigger.

krzrak 12y ago

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

optymizer 12y ago
It's in the 'Preface' chapter: http://natureofcode.com/book/preface/ http://natureofcode.com/book/preface/
- krzrak 12y ago
  Indeed, thanks. It's strange, that link on the homepage, which invites to start reading skips the preface.

efm 12y ago

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

frbr 12y ago

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