Processing 1.0 - Processing Discourse - Writing a book, need some advice..

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Writing a book, need some advice.. (Read 1595 times)

seltar

Writing a book, need some advice..
Apr 5^th, 2006, 8:36pm

I'm writing a book, basicly for Designers who want to learn how to use Processing as an art-tool in their designs...

First of all.. A short neat title for that would be?

Fry or Ben, would it be possible to include a copy of the latest Processing, and parts of the API in the book?

Any requests or suggestions as to what i NEED in this book?

That's basicly it.. So for now, I'll just continue writing, and start sketching up some example code...

-seltar

I'm bored, therefore I program
http://seltar.org > seltar's special place
http://snippet.seltar.org > seltar's snippet palace
http://libraries.seltar.org > seltar's libraries

JohnG

Re: Writing a book, need some advice..
Reply #1 - Apr 5^th, 2006, 8:58pm

No idea about name or processing license etc, but as for what it "needs", I'd suggest go through this forum (and the FAQ), find the most asked questions, and if they're the sorts of things your target audience is likely to be interested, make sure you cover that sort of area.

One thing I personally think would be really good to cover in a nice clear way, would be rotate/ translate/ scale/ pushMatrix/ popMatrix, as they're not the easiest of concepts to grasp, but can be really useful, and make code a lot simpler.

Edit: Thought of a silly title "The code of... ooh shiny!"

mark hill

Re: Writing a book, need some advice..
Reply #2 - Apr 6^th, 2006, 1:05pm

At this risk of sounding flippant: "Processing for Designers" (That way they'll know it's for them!)

If you're targeting a Design audience specifically, you'll know the sorts of habits they have as practitioners, so I guess it'll be a question of maximizing on what they already do, and demonstrating how processing might be used to achieve the things they'll be interested in (supporting/ enhancing exisitng practice).

You'll probably only need to demonstrate the basic principles, such as John has mentioned, and then make them efficient at finding out the rest for themselves, through the forums and processing hacks, and other related source material.

I still rather rate Shiffman's work as an example worth adopting, just tailored for Designers.

That's my ha'pennys worth!

seltar

Re: Writing a book, need some advice..
Reply #3 - Apr 7^th, 2006, 2:33am

Thanks for the great advice! I've allready been greatly inspired by Shiffman, and that is at least a part of what i want to do.
I think i'm going to divide it into a couple of sections
Basic Processing
- how to write a processing sketch
- introduction to some basic functions
- saving as jpg, tga, pdf or dxf
- Examples
Motion
- Creating designs with motion
- Different mathematical formulas for motion
- Examples
Design
- Combining Processing and static design
- Idea Assignments *

* by idea assignment i mean for the reader to basicly come up with something to make from within the bounderies of what he's learned. i.e. use motion to draw a red form within the applets window.. or something

but we'll see.. maybe it'll just be a long tutorial, if it never publishes Tongue

*Edit*
This is just a rough, off the top of my head estimate.. nothing definite yet..
*Edit*
-seltar

I'm bored, therefore I program
http://seltar.org > seltar's special place
http://snippet.seltar.org > seltar's snippet palace
http://libraries.seltar.org > seltar's libraries

Oolong Junior Member Offline Posts: 87 Scotland	Re: Writing a book, need some advice.. Reply #4 - Apr 15^th, 2006, 1:06pm Don't forget that if you're targeting designers, you'll probably need to explain some very basic programming concepts - what variables, functions and conditional statements are, that sort of thing - very close to the start. Preferably in as concrete a way as possible.
	http://oolong.co.uk/play

borrego

Re: Writing a book, need some advice..
Reply #5 - May 28^th, 2006, 1:48am

I attempted to learn Processing to work on a project this past February. I realized that there was no way I would learn the program AND complete the project in the ammount of time given to me (about 3 months). I scaled down the ammount of information I wanted to examine and ended up doing a sculptural installation of the information. see it at http://www.timborrego.com It ended up working out nicely, but I am now ready to go back and learn Processing. I am your target audience. I have recently recieveing my BFA in design (well they give it to me tomorrow), so I have a solid knowledge of design but programming is elusive to me. This past week I realized that in order for me to recieve a complete understanding of Processing or any programming language for that matter, I am starting from the very beginning. I mean the very very beginning. Right now my main resources are this http://www.samspublishing.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0672323079&rl=1 and this http://www.tedfelix.com/qbasic/ That gives you an idea of the level i'm starting from. This book is going to have to be very forgiving of its audience if you choose to make this book for any artist. I am still at the beginning here so i'll let you know how it goes, maybe I could offer you some more advice along the way. Even better you could teach me the 'art of programming' with hopes of learning Processing and see if you dont give up mid way. That would be rich material for your book. Good luck, happy memorial day, and I hope this was useful for you.

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