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| Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists | 
 enlarge | Authors: Casey Reas, Ben Fry
Creator: John Maeda
Publisher: The MIT Press
Category: Book
List Price: $50.00
Buy New: $40.00
You Save: $10.00 (20%)
New (32) Used (8) from $40.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 5393
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 736
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0262182629
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.1
EAN: 9780262182621
ASIN: 0262182629
Publication Date: September 30, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
It has been more than twenty years since desktop publishing reinvented design, and it's clear that there is a growing need for designers and artists to learn programming skills to fill the widening gap between their ideas and the capability of their purchased software. This book is an introduction to the concepts of computer programming within the context of the visual arts. It offers a comprehensive reference and text for Processing (www.processing.org), an open-source programming language that can be used by students, artists, designers, architects, researchers, and anyone who wants to program images, animation, and interactivity.
The ideas in Processing have been tested in classrooms, workshops, and arts institutions, including UCLA, Carnegie Mellon, New York University, and Harvard University. Tutorial units make up the bulk of the book and introduce the syntax and concepts of software (including variables, functions, and object-oriented programming), cover such topics as photography and drawing in relation to software, and feature many short, prototypical example programs with related images and explanations. More advanced professional projects from such domains as animation, performance, and typography are discussed in interviews with their creators. "Extensions" present concise introductions to further areas of investigation, including computer vision, sound, and electronics. Appendixes, references to other material, and a glossary contain additional technical details. Processing can be used by reading each unit in order, or by following each category from the beginning of the book to the end. The Processing software and all of the code presented can be downloaded and run for future exploration.
Essays by: Alexander R. Galloway, Golan Levin, R. Luke DuBois, Simon Greenwold, Francis Li, Hernando Barragan
Interviews with: Jared Tarbell, Martin Wattenberg, James Paterson, Erik van Blockland, Ed Burton, Josh On, Juerg Lehni, Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn, Mathew Cullen and Grady Hall, Bob Sabiston, Jennifer Steinkamp, Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt, Sue Costabile, Chris Csikszentmihalyi, Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman, Mark Hansen
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
great start for programmers, great tutorials January 4, 2009
I went into this book knowing ZERO programming what so ever. Not only give i get a good comprehension of programming for Processing but it also helped me down the line to learn of languages like action script, php, and UNIX. Ben Fry's book is great for beginner programmers and includes a lot of helpful images. I wish every computer tutorial book was as good as this one. I was at 1st upset there was no softcover, but now im happy i spent so much on the hard cover because i know ill be happy i have it 10 years form now.
Hands down, the best intro to Processing January 2, 2009
I have been using Processing for awhile now and I still find myself coming back to this book. I bought it when first starting out in Processing and I recommend it to anyone and everyone who is serious about learning the language.
It starts out very simple and slowly ramps up to more complicated concepts. The book is also sprinkled with interviews and concepts that will get your brain turning about possible projects.
Buy this book now!
A terse review October 14, 2008
What can I add to the previous reviews praising for this book?
I wonder nothing... or little...
But lets list some important issues about "Processing", at least for me. (1) The errata shown in the processing site (www.processing.org) is already corrected in the current printing. (2) My goal in reading this book is to learn enough Processing to be able to give an impulse to my child -- which loves arts, and spends much of hers Net-surfing time in deviantART -- to learn and develop programming skills. (3) The book is itself a piece of art. (4) It has a nice and beautiful hardcover package. (5) Greetings to MIT Press and the editor(s) of the book for achieving such a nice product. (6) Although having about 700 pages, the book nevertheless has a size which allows one to read it at bed, before going to sleep. (7) In a few weeks, interspersed with the many other readings I have to do each day, I managed to read already almost 1/3 of the book and plan to go till the end. (8) Finally, Processing is a Java/C/C++/C#/Python/Perl... kind of language, what makes the absorption of the language semantics and syntax very easy for a veteran like me.
And perhaps one of these days I become a digital artist :-)
A pedagogic masterpiece October 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is, quite simply, a godsend. If you are an artist that enjoys tinkering with all things technological (especially an artist that enjoyed mathematics or beating up your computer in high school lab class) than it's certainly for you. If, on the other hand, you are the type of person that hopes to breeze though this and start applying "techie things" to your video art, then you are in for a let-down...it IS a bit tough for someone that has never played with a computer programming language. No way around it, you're going to have to WORK!!
But, that's the thing. You're supposed to work, massage, twist, graft, apply, subtract and otherwise mangle these functions and commands until they do some (random, unexpected) beautiful thing. This is exactly what the authors want you to do. Take their simple equations and use your imagination to change them up a bit and make your own.
And, a big plus is how the whole book is structured. It starts with simple enough topics and progressively increases in difficulty, BUT, and here is the stroke of genius for artsy types, it does so by switching the topics here and there from shapes, to type, to math, to random, to trig, to type again, back to shapes...etc. So, you see, it's structured (if you read from cover to cover in a linear fashion) in a way that will NOT bore the reader in any way. It's as if Reas and Fry knew that most of us artsy types were (completely and hopelessly) ADHD and needed this kind of variety to keep our interest (lord knows they probably wish they did, coming from artistic backgrounds before entering MIT as grads). And, as an added bonus, if you are the kind of person that likes the topics all neatly together, there is a second topical index behind the main index so you can jump through the book by topic.
In closing, Reas and Fry have done us "new media" types a great service by developing a trimmed-down form of Java programming so that we don't have to do the heavy work and learn full-blown Java or C++ on our own (though, after using this language, the hope is that it WILL get us "artsies" to learn those higher level languages and make genre-smashing art). So, get going!
P.S. The only thing I wish this book had were MORE Exercises at the end of each topic. Or, a workbook that had more problems to solve, like my old Calculus text that had 30 problems after each section. Guys, could we, just maybe, extend the problem sets in a future edition, from three to maybe 10? It would be much appreciated! :)
 Great book from the creators... August 14, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a great text, from the authors of the software itself. I'm only through the first hundred pages or so, but it's a fairly well-presented volume of information split into easily digested chapters, on everything from the command structure for creating graphics to the math that governs such efforts. The authors cover not only the rationale behind their own programming language, but also touch on the thinking behind digital graphic and artworks as a whole...
While the chapters are a little scattered for the linear reader (e.g., certain of the mathematical function chapters are broken and split into chapters that would flow a little better with no break between them), the authors are fairly clear in their intro and table of contents that the text is meant to be read and digested in a variety of ways, linear being only one method.
There are a few problems with the explanations of some of the syntax and command structure, but overall, the book is a sound investment for a newby like myself, who hasn't visited programming in a number of years, and needs a primer/refresher, as well as a source for the more advanced coding artist. I recommend the book without reservation.
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