Design By Numbers

"a simple language designed to introduce the most basic ideas of computer programming in the context of drawing"

The crucial learning component of JohnMaeda's DBN - and the one that fills the missing 'insiration gap' for visually-oriented people wanting to develop programming skills - is that DBN contains simple syntax that enables direct drawing to the screen. For more on Design By Numbers (DBN) see:

http://dbn.media.mit.edu

However, Processing - developed by Maeda's former students Casey Reas and Ben Fry - builds on DBN, and is its true successor:

http://processing.org

This is from the Processing site:

"Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is developed by artists and designers as an alternative to proprietary software tools in the same domain."

Some time in the future I'll add a separate page for Processing later on, after checking that it isn't already here, somewhere.

-- DaveEveritt