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Topic: Absolute Beginners Guide for coding in p5 (Read 533 times) |
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elout
 
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Absolute Beginners Guide for coding in p5
« on: Jan 8th, 2004, 11:52pm » |
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Absolute Beginners Startup Guide for programming in processing
quote from Arielm;
(a bit out of topic but still relevant) i think there's an obvious lack of tutorials for real-beginners (i.e. the reference is too "advanced"), but hey, that's up to us (the "educators")!
So here`s my first try to set up the first few bits of knowledge.
And I start from when you managed to install p5 correctly
(that`s is another faq I guess.)
I will start with some basic knowledge, the rest will follow by me (and others I hope.)
And I know although it`s easy for a coder to understand things quickly, but for a beginner it will be really difficult to understand, and the same for a coder to explain things.
------------------------------------------------------------
- Output - println -
Copy the code into the white screen of processing window and press the play button.
Code:
println("hello world!");
println("this is processing");
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This will print the text into the bottom of your screen.
(Besides opening a little grey window that is not used yet. But soon we will!)
- Output - print -
Now the same thing now with the print function.
Code:
print("hello");
print(" ");
print("world");
print("!");
print("\n");
print("this " + "is ");
print("processing");
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the print command doesn`t use line-breaks like println
but in this example the "\n" creates the new line-break for you.
------------------------------------------------------------
- Adding comments into your source -
If you create some software, it`s a good thing to tell you or other programmers
what`s going on. Good documentation is really a must, so just do it!
Imagine you wrote some piece of software 1 year ago, and you want to re-use again,
comments are really helpfull then/always.
Code:
// this is a comment, it won`t hurt anything or mess with your code
// but you can use it for sharing information.
println("hello world!"); // this will print 'hello world'
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or like this
Code:
/*
this is a comment, it won`t hurt anything
or mess with your code
but you can use it for
sharing information.
*/
println("hello world!"); // this will print 'hello world'
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------------------------------------------------------------
- Numbers and math - int -
Code:
int a=2;
int b=3;
int c=a+b;
println("my a = " + a);
println("my b = " + b);
println("my c = " + c);
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adds a+b and put into c
Some other ways for adding/substracting
Code:
int a=0;
println("my a=" + a);
a++; // add 1 to my a
println("my a=" + a);
a+=5; // add 5 to my a
println("my a=" + a);
a--; // substract 1 from my a
println("my a=" + a);
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Note int are 'real' numbers (without floating points), so if you try this.
Code:
int a=5;
int b=2;
int c=a/b;
println("my a = " + a);
println("my b = " + b);
println("my c = " + c);
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The computer will calculate this to another 'real' number that is an integer.
- Numbers and math - float -
now I want to work with some floating point numbers
Code:
float a=5;
float b=2;
float c=a/b;
println("my a = " + a);
println("my b = " + b);
println("my c = " + c);
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Or the same thing using float`s and int altogether.
Code:
int a=5;
int b=2;
float c=(float) a/b;
println("my a = " + a);
println("my b = " + b);
println("my c = " + c);
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------------------------------------------------------------
- loops - for
Code:
for (int i=0;i<50;i++)
{
print( i + " yeah! ");
}
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prints out the value of 'i' and the word 50 times
Now analysing this 'for' loop
int i=0; creates a new integer called 'i' with the value '0'
i<50; means: is 'i' still smaller then 50??
i++; increases the i by one every time it goes around the loop.
and you really don`t need to start at 0
Code:
for (int i=20;i<70;i++)
{
print(" " + i);
}
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or start from 50 till 0
Code:
for (int i=50;i>0;i--)
{
print(" " + i);
}
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note i>0 means if 'i' is still bigger then 0
- loops - while
Code:
int i=0;
while (i<50)
{
i++;
print(" - " + i);
}
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to be continued..
[edit]some typo`s[/edit]
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| « Last Edit: Jan 9th, 2004, 2:30pm by elout » |
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arielm
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Re: Absolute Beginners Guide for coding in p5
« Reply #1 on: Jan 9th, 2004, 1:18pm » |
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hey elout, nice initiative!
one comment: at some points, you use the term "command" instead of "comment".
+ one suggestion: why not posting this one in the "Teaching/Theory & Practice" board, since it's the place absolute beginners will naturally look at for tutorials?
a+
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| « Last Edit: Jan 9th, 2004, 1:19pm by arielm » |
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Ariel Malka | www.chronotext.org
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