As Processing recently hit 1.0 I thought I’d take a quick look. It seems to work on the same principle as a unit test suite or a web framework – you develop “inside” the library, so it can abstract all that Java complexity away from you. Fill out setup() and draw() methods, press a button to run, press a button to export as an applet. Embedding the applet in Wordpress is actually a lot more frustrating than writing the damn thing (Solution: I resorted to an iframe. I don’t really want to waste time because Wordpress is being “smart”).
Processing is an awful lot of fun. It evokes a feeling of exploration that I haven’t had since the BBC Basic days – experimenting with maths, mapping it to a plane, just to see what it looks like.
I doubt anyone reading this via RSS will be able to see the applet, but you’re only missing lens-flare-esque coloured blobs. Click and hold to draw. Right-click to clear.
Source code: TransparentEllipses