Processing Media with Processing (Beta)

The core processing language is written in Java, but you don’t need to know or understand any of the more advanced concepts of Java or programming in general because Processing uses a much simplified version of Java, with many technical details of Java already integrated.  Setting up your system to use the Processing IDE couldn’t be easier; you just download the zip file and extract the files to a specified directory.  There’s no need to add environment variables or paths to your system or anything like that; it doesn't even have an installer. 

Included with the distribution is a comprehensive HTML reference manual presented in HTML where you can navigate through all of the different components of the language.  It’s very well documented and presented in the same style as the online site.  At the time of writing, the language specification and the IDE in use are 0.118; it's still a beta and is very much in its infancy.  This hasn't stopped people from creating some very impressive visual artifacts however.

Make sure you check out the exhibition section of the site to see what others have achieved with Processing.  There are some fantastic, inspiring showcases that demonstrate the graceful power of the language.  The best of these, in my opinion, is called Grass so make sure you check that out, but there are also many more that you can browse through.

Drawing shapes on screen and then getting the shape to move around is relatively straight-forward; anyone can download the source and begin doing this in minutes.  It goes without saying that the more complex the movements you want those shapes to do, the more complex is the code required and the longer it’s going to take someone to learn, but you can gain a lot of knowledge just by looking through the examples.