Proce55ing

Speaking of heroes, former roommate Ben Fry finds himself in Wired magazine this month on page 61. The article is a shot blurb on Proce55ing, an application he created and is developing with Casey Reas. The scary description is "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." What it is is a tool that helps people disinclined towards programming to make complex things simply within java. Or, as Fry writes, "It's java with training wheels. we try to make the cool stuff more accessible." He's been trying to get me to learn for, it seems, years. Maybe I'll start learning in September once my life calms down a bit. You can learn more about the application, see some examples, and download the beta here. And while we're at it, here's an example of someone putting it into practice. Incidentally, the image above is a still from a proce55ing piece created by Peter Cho. You can now find the Wired article here.