Processing 1.0 - Processing Discourse

Martin YaBB Newbies Offline Posts: 5 Philippines	Processing Wiki Apr 19^th, 2005, 8:04pm hi all, i've been wanting to do this since before but only found time now. http://p5.colors.at/ - or - http://61.9.70.5/twiki/bin/view/Processing/WebHome hopefully, we can develop this into a flourishing online book of sorts. thanks! best, martin

fred

Re: Processing Wiki
Reply #1 - Apr 19^th, 2005, 9:47pm

Hey Martin

You beat me to it, this is great. This was one of the suggestions I was going to present in order to build a community-driven reference for processing post-alpha.

I'll be dropping in some contributions soon. Thumbs up for setting this up, even though I still believe we should integrate a wiki in the processing.org portal.

But this would be a whole new thread (and a few emails to our webdev mailing list - that died for the second time in a row 3 months ago).

if you graph the patterns of any system, patterns emerge.

rgovostes Junior Member Offline Posts: 76	Re: Processing Wiki Reply #2 - Apr 19^th, 2005, 10:55pm This is a great idea. The Cocoa programming site, CocoaDev is a Wiki which is essentially used as a forum. It seems to have been successful in the 5 years it's been operating, so perhaps we could model after it

REAS

Re: Processing Wiki
Reply #3 - Apr 19^th, 2005, 11:44pm

Martin,

Thanks for taking the initiative. I'm a little skeptical. I'm not trying to be negative, just constructive and curious. Can you please elaborate on the focus of the Wiki? I've always thought a community based Processing Wiki made alot of sense, but I assumed it would focus on a particular aspect. For example, a collection of common algorithms. I'm a little worried about diluting or repeating the discussion on this board. Are we large enough as a community to split our attention? I hope we can have a quick dialog...

fred

Re: Processing Wiki
Reply #4 - Apr 20^th, 2005, 12:51am

Casey,

A possible use for a wiki in processing's case would be to allow the community to cooperatively build reference material organized by topics or chapters. Collaborative book writing by communities is one of the most fascinating uses of a wiki.

When I thought of the wiki for processing, and when I saw martin's post, I immediately thought of that. Yes, a section with a collection of algorithms would be good, but we don't need to stop there. We could go from a chapter on the basics, to chapters on Form, Function, Networking, using OpenGL, etc, and one for algorithms.

Is a wiki the best solution for new users to get information on using something like processing? It might not be, but the forums can get cryptic after a while. With the launch of beta and the future 1.0, processing is in need of a community-based reference apart from the learning section of the site.

if you graph the patterns of any system, patterns emerge.

TomC

Re: Processing Wiki
Reply #5 - Apr 20^th, 2005, 1:06am

wikiphilia

I'm against a general purpose wiki. The processing community isn't a tight knit group of people with a common goal, it's a bunch of loosely-related people with individual problems, issues and items of interest.

Wiki's don't do very well at hosting conversations in my experience. Forums like this aren't the greatest, but they are easier to understand and better for lots of short-lived diverse topics.

Writing a book on Processing using a wiki, however, could be interesting. How about "Graphics Algorithm implementations with Processing", or an O'Reilly-style "Processing Hacks" I'd be supportive of such a project - I'd suggest starting with an outline table of contents and inviting people to comment, and then creating a page for each chapter.

Processing's centralised reference and learning materials are one of its strongest features in my opinion. Wikifying them would just add clutter and mess - the website bugs section is perfect for maintaining this kind of resource (and if Reas tires of the job, there are plenty of people who would take over).

{sketches,links,blogs,hacks}

REAS YaBB Moderator Offline Posts: 712 CA	Re: Processing Wiki Reply #6 - Apr 20^th, 2005, 1:09am i agree with your thoughts, fred. i do know doing something like that will require extreme dedication by one or a small group of individuals over a period of at least one year to get it started and growing in the right direction. i think without that commitment, it's not worth starting..

fred

Re: Processing Wiki
Reply #7 - Apr 20^th, 2005, 2:22am

Some important points here. Some of these that were up for discussion on the now apparently defunct processing-web group. What I do believe processing lacks (and i've said this one in one of such discussions - I still have the logs on my lab machine), is a knowledge base that allows for user input.

Because just like tom pointed out, we do have a community of loose individuals with particular problems. That is our problem at the moment. The solution is a system that allows for those particular problems to be documented by the users in such a way that others can learn from it. The wiki may not be the best fit for this, but it may be a help.

And there's the book idea, that I believe should go forward, particularly now that processing is in a stage where the API will probably take a less erratic change path.

if you graph the patterns of any system, patterns emerge.

REAS

Re: Processing Wiki
Reply #8 - Apr 20^th, 2005, 2:41am

I still think the PHP.net style reference is the way to go. A curated reference with additions from the community. This only applies to reference, though. There are other topics to be explored through community. I do have plans to have more hooks for people posting into the site. I hope to implement this with Florian.

Essentially, I'm not the right person to webmaster this site anymore and hopefully there will be a transition beneficial for everyone.

I've come to the conclusion that for something more elaborate, someone other than myself needs to do it. Either in communication with me or separate. I'm not able to manage it with with my other committments (or more to the point, it's not my highest priority). That's been proven by the lack of progress in this area over the last two years.

FYI. We have two books planned. One: an introduction to programming from the ground up with an emphasis on graphics, motion, and interaction using Processing as the environment. Two: tutorials and context on particular topics including 3D, information visualization, artificial life, computer vision. This book will be authored by members of the community and probably edited by myself and fry. Neither book, I should mention, is currently is in active production but now that beta is out, this effort will step up.

fjen

Re: Processing Wiki
Reply #9 - Apr 20^th, 2005, 2:00pm

just because fred mentioned it twice: the web-team did not die or defunc, it just shrinked to a size where it was unable to go on. we have great plans for the future of this website and will hopefully find enough reliable people to make it happen. applications welcome!

about the wiki. the main question is what do the users need? wiki-reference is not happening i think. given the main target-group we should try to make answers as easy and fast accessible and as possible. that's the ordered reference. thinking of the tech-notes section it's clear that a later grouping of former "hidden" knowledge (as it would be with a wiki) only works up to a certain point ... we should try making something less like a websearch. i think the php.net-style add-notes-to-reference (and to examples, technotes, ...) is the better way to go there.

all the points currently covered by the processing site (just read the menu) work well as they are at the moment (there is room for improvement). the exhibition and news cover, semi-static pages for examples, reference, translations, ..., that are updated by a dedicated group of people (same style, ...) and the forum for real exchange of knowledge and opinion. where the site clearly lacks is in the field of thinking and talking about the medium itself and works done in it. think of project-oriented pages (like setpixel.com) or what the old "general discussion" topic used to be ... a honest and open place to talk about what we do and why we do it. away from the main focus on "teaching" processing, away from a very technical perspective. i could see a wiki there.

mkn

Re: Processing Wiki
Reply #10 - Apr 20^th, 2005, 3:22pm

What about keeping the forums like now (as they are good for asking questions and general conversation) but having the technotes wiki-style. That way it would be much easier to not only to browse/search for info and solutions, but also to add your own experience that might be of use for others... Without anybody else having to ask the right question first.

fjen

Re: Processing Wiki
Reply #11 - Apr 20^th, 2005, 3:54pm

well ... i'm against using a wiki for tech-notes. and again, but i don't like the way (links into forum) we have it at the moment either.

everything that's ment to let users look up a certain information in it should be easily graspable (sorted and structured) which neither a forum nor a wiki are. forums are too stiff and structured (threads, order of messages), wikis are only search- and hyperlink-based (no real index).

as said before, i think a static information-tree (one or more indices, searchable) where users can add information per page the way they can on php.net or mysql.com is the way to go. just my 5 cents though ...

Martin

Re: Processing Wiki
Reply #12 - Apr 20^th, 2005, 5:12pm

Hello everyone. Thank you for the overwhelming response. One may infer from the sample topics I've posted that I've thought of using a wiki to author a collaborative book to help teach design and media arts; particularly with the use of Processing. Modesty aside, now that I've been offered a professorship in information design and have accepted it, I feel for this. In addition, we notice that Processing actually revolves around an academic community -- be it formal or informal. Therefore, perhaps having a dynamic teaching resource about information design, interactive design, interface design, media arts and sciences, whathaveyou is the way to go.

In c.e.b.'s post, he mentioned that there are plans for two books. I must admit that months ago, I did see (somewhere) about plans for a Processing book. I think this is related with John Maeda's plan for yet-upcoming books... Again, I'm not sure. However, let me reiterate that REAS just confirmed the existence of the idea for two Processing books.

Indeed, I believe that a general purpose wiki won't cut it. So why a wiki? Clearly, the Tutorial section of this site hasn't been progressing. Perhaps one of the goals of the wiki is to enable anyone to add to the book without going through the perils of a compliated process.

In view of this, I definitely do not see the wiki as a discussion area. However, I see it as a resource that can have some form of structure, can be made tangible and is able to thrive.

Ideas, welcome. Thank you.

toxi

Re: Processing Wiki
Reply #13 - Apr 21^st, 2005, 7:34pm

fjen wrote on Apr 20^th, 2005, 3:54pm:

forums are too stiff and structured (threads, order of messages), wikis are only search- and hyperlink-based (no real index).

as said before, i think a static information-tree (one or more indices, searchable) where users can add information per page the way they can on php.net or mysql.com is the way to go. just my 5 cents though ...

i actually don't agree with much of this at all. it's true, many popular wiki systems are pretty rudimentary from a navigation POV. on the other hand wikis are an active area of research and there're some very clever systems out there with (in some ways) superior navigation features and potentially greate ease of use:

for example check out DiamondWiki's faceted navigation...

forum systems like http://tagsurf.com/ introduce new(ish) ideas like tagging and folksonomy for creating dynamic categories & navigation paths, created by users. at the same time these systems help them staying up-to-date with discussions by supplying RSS feeds (even on a thread basis). alone this last feature would be worth a million, i think.

for realtime communication i still think an IRC channel with some logger bots would be great. i've been hanging out on some W3C channels on freenode.net for a while, and those groups' means of communication are incredibly efficient: conversations are logged & archived, links automatically annotated, meetings held and marker URIs added at key moments, meta data of any kind can be added to the database and queried via bot commands in IRC directly etc. it's constantly growing interactive knowledge base...

i started writing up some stuff a while ago about integrating FOAF meta data into a future processing backend to enable new ways to search and find information, find users who are potentially knowledgable in certain subjects, or are near your location, know other users you know yourself etc. a lot of that information can be created automatically, simply by updating user profiles based on user behaviour (eg. posting history) if you're interested i can send you the rough notes...

personally, i'd love to see some of those blue sky ideas implemented for this community. if we're going the PHP.net route, one might as well just set up a processing community blog with comments enabled... i don't see much difference, but then again i should be quiet anyway for being one those people who got lost on the way... Wink

still, i hope this is something to think about in more detail! that's all...

postspectacular.com | toxi.co.uk

REAS YaBB Moderator Offline Posts: 712 CA	Re: Processing Wiki Reply #14 - Apr 21^st, 2005, 11:57pm i haven't read martin or toxi's last posts entirely yet, but i've been thinking about a wiki for the purpose of technotes. i think it might be the best route.