Processing is a context for exploring the emerging conceptual space enabled by electronic media. It is an environment for learning the fundamentals of computer programming within the context of the electronic arts and it is an electronic sketchbook for developing ideas.
The software is currently in a prerelease stage, but bug fixes are being made as we head toward a more complete “1.0” release. Processing will be free to download and available for Mac, PC, and Linux.
more info
Basically its an easy implementation of Java. Its based in visuals and primarily in 3D (well I guess 2D and 3D but the 3D is there and with any 3D you need atleast the 1D and the 2D to get that far ;)).
a nifty example of a folding K
A threat to Flash? Wired magazine made it seem that way in its small blurb about Processing in its latest (sept) issue. It IS Java though. The Java pluggin for browsers is still pretty bulky, and though faster in regards to processing speeds when compared to Flash, the user interface just isnt there in the authoring environment. Processing (this application) seems, at least at this point, just an easier environment for programming Java with new easier, more intuitive methods whereas Flash is focused on both programmers and developers providing a fully featured authoring environment that seems to completely beat anything Processing has to offer now (which is pretty much completely code based). Still, it seems to be quite an interesting project and great for learning visual-based programming and other introductory programming concepts and a good way to more easily create some spiffy Java Applets.
I think the article is right, flash is just too much easier to use and develp for compared to that of Java that I dont think you will see it take over. Unless of course they come up with a way for the everyday web develpoer to harness the power of it the same way Macromedia has done with flash.
Looks pretty nice! I read about it in the latest issue of Wired also, and I agree with what Sureshot said - unless it becomes easy to use as Flash, it probably won’t get too many followers.
The best thing about the animations in Java is that they don’t lag the system on complex scenes. The coding doesn’t seem too complex though
Yes, I heard about proce55ing from bit-101 a while back when he started to work in Java. It definitely sparked my interest and I want to try and learn (or at least play around with) it in the future, but right now I got too many languages that I am trying to learn (AS, PHP/mySQL, more Javascript)
SureShot: Hehe thanks… it’s true too, since my announcement I haven’t answered any preloader questions… I may read them, but that’s about it… ok i don’t want to get off subject.
Thor: Since you know Java already, you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting into this, I would love to see some things you create. But I uhhh… said that to you before.
Yeah I’d agree with Kirupa, looks like it handles the graphics more speedily than Flash does, that coupled with what’ll probably be much speedier code execution than dog-slow actionscript could yeald some really impressive results
This is definitely the language I have been waiting for all these years. I have tested and tried to overcome the limits of Actionscript and I can say that i’m pretty upset. I know Flash isn’t meant for heavy experiments and such, but rather web content in which Actionscript is merely complement to it.
you mean from v5 to v6? there were some improvements made all round, and some big improvements made in certain areas like xml parseing as I remember, but overall its still slooooow, a simple loop in javascript will run thousands of times faster than the same in actionscript.
Well, off course not, but it’s still something :beam:
And I don’t think it will be a threat to Flash in the near future. A few programmers here and there will surely try their hands at that new tool (traitors!!) but that’s it
A threat? No way … Flash is so entrenched in the life of web diesgn (not just ANIMATION like this Processing looks like) that it’s not going anywhere anytime soon … except up!
Flash is working on making it easier for database integration too! I just don’t see how Flash has any threats right now.
Flash is the future of web design, and not just because it’s something nice to look at.
