Intro and questions

NamelessPerson

Hey Processing!

I'm a sophomore Computer Science and Visual Arts and Technology double major at Stevens Institute. While generally I do lower level systems programming, I started learning Processing for an Art class this semester and fell in love instantly. While the programmer in me hates how abstracted Processing can be, and how easy it is to make bad code, the artist in me loves how quick and easy it is to make working applications.

I've seen two ideas so far that I'd be interested in submitting a proposal for. My first complaint with Processing was the PDE. While most my classmates don't really notice it, after working with Eclipse and Sublime Text the PDE seems really slow, clunky, and is missing lots of features. I see two possible solutions to this: Editing the PDE to create a smoother workflow with some easier to use features such as multiple window/viewport support, documentation support, better autocomplete, etc; OR fix the processing-java compiler to be much easier to use with many more features, examples, and documentation. Which would you guys prefer? What features would be best to add?

The other idea came from another proposer: a Game library. A lot of my programming skills are focused towards gaming. I've been taking classes and learning OpenGL and Game Engine Architecture, so this idea is right down my alley. We could either build a new library, or try and port pieces of libGDX which is built in Java. I think a lot of users of Processing are building games, and specific libraries for that would not only attract more users, but also help current users learn the intricacies of how large-scale video games work. What features should be focused on? Is this too complicated for Processing's scope of simplifying things?

I am really excited to work with you guys and really want to try and get a solid project going.

Chrisir

point 1

you can use processing in eclipse, see tutorials

also a new version of the IDE is under way, I think it's PDE X or so

point 2

did you look at the libs? I think there are game libs

https://processing.org/reference/libraries/#animation

but I appreciate both points since both are worth discussing and tackling

Chrisir ;-)

NamelessPerson

also a new version of the IDE is unser way, I think it's PDE X or so

I wasn't aware of this before but I'm going to check it out now! Also would improving the processing-java compiler idea be of any interest?

did you look at the libs? I think there are game libs

I did look at these and (unless I'm missing something) there aren't any actual game libraries. There are libraries that can be used for games, like sprite libraries, but when I say game library, I mean with like a Scene Graph, Actors, Controllers, an Event System, etc. The things that make up an actual game engine.

shiffman

Library ideas make for great GSOC proposals b/c they can be completed as stand-alone projects. We are always looking for help with improving the PDE. If you want to go that route I might suggest starting by looking through the issues marked help:

https://github.com/processing/processing/issues?q=is:open+is:issue+label:help