The project was initiated in 2001 by Casey Reas and Ben Fry, both formerly of the Aesthetics and Computation Group at the MIT Media Lab. In 2012, they started the Processing Foundation along with Daniel Shiffman, who joined as a third project lead. Johanna Hedva joined the Foundation in 2014 as Director of Advocacy. Originally, Processing had the URL of proce55ing.net, because the processing domain was taken. Eventually Reas and Fry acquired the domain processing.org. Although the name had a combination of letters and numbers, it was still pronounced processing. They do not prefer the environment being referred to as Proce55ing. Despite the domain name change, Processing still uses the term p5 sometimes as a shortened name, for example p5.js is a reference to that.
Features
Processing includes a sketchbook, a minimal alternative to an integrated development environment for organizing projects. Every Processing sketch is actually a subclass of the PAppletJava class which implements most of the Processing language's features. When programming in Processing, all additional classes defined will be treated as inner classes when the code is translated into pure Java before compiling. This means that the use of static variables and methods in classes is prohibited unless Processing is explicitly told to code in pure Java mode. Processing also allows for users to create their own classes within the PApplet sketch. This allows for complex data types that can include any number of arguments and avoids the limitations of solely using standard data types such as: int, char, float, and color.
Examples
The simplest possible version of a "Hello World" program in Processing is: //This prints "Hello World." to the IDE console. println;
However, due to the more visually-oriented nature of Processing, the following code is a better example of the look and feel of the language. //Hello mouse. void setup void draw
"Drawing on a background in graphic design and computer science, Ben Fry pursues a long-held fascination with visualizing data. As Principal of Fathom Information Design in Boston, Fry develops software, printed works, installations, and books that depict and explain topics from the human genome to baseball salaries to the evolution of text documents. With Casey Reas, he founded the Processing Project, an open-source programming environment for teaching computational design and sketching interactive-media software. It provides artists and designers with accessible means of working with code while encouraging engineers and computer scientists to think about design concepts."
License
Processing's core libraries, the code included in exported applications and applets, is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing users to release their original code with a choice of license. The IDE is licensed under the GNU General Public License.
Related projects
Processing is not a single language, but rather, an arts-oriented approach to learning, teaching, and making things with code. There are several variants and related projects:
Processing was based on the original work done on Design By Numbers project at MIT. It shares many of the same ideas and is a direct child of that experiment.
Processing.js
In 2008, John Resig ported Processing to JavaScript using the Canvas element for rendering, allowing Processing to be used in modern web browsers without the need for a Java plugin. Since then, the open source community including students at Seneca College in Toronto have taken over the project. Processing.js is also used to advocate very basic programming to Students of all ages on Khan Academy by creating drawings and animations. Learners showcase their creations to other learners.
p5js
In 2013, Lauren McCarthy created p5.js, a native JavaScript alternative to Processing.js that has the official support of the Processing Foundation. McCarthy also teaches an introductory course to p5.js on Kadenze.
Processing.py
Python Mode for Processing, or Processing.py is a Python interface to the underlying Java toolkit. It was chiefly developed by Jonathan Feinberg starting in 2010, with contributions from James Gilles and Ben Alkov.
Processing has spawned another project, Wiring, which uses the Processing IDE with a collection of libraries written in the C++ language as a way to teach artists how to program microcontrollers. There are now two separate hardware projects, Wiring and Arduino, using the Wiring environment and language. Fritzing is another software environment of the same sort, which helps designers and artists to document their interactive prototypes and to take the step from physical prototyping to actual product.
Mobile Processing
Another spin-off project, now defunct, is Mobile Processing by Francis Li, which allowed software written using the Processing language and environment to run on Java powered mobile devices. Today some of the same functionality is provided by Processing itself.
iProcessing
iProcessing was built to help people develop native iPhone applications using the Processing language. It is an integration of the Processing.js library and a Javascript application framework for iPhone.
Spde
Spde replaces Processing's reduced Java syntax and custom preprocessor with the off-the-shelf Scala programming language which also runs on the Java platform and enforces some of the same restrictions such as disallowing static methods, while also allowing more concise code, and supporting functional programming.
JRubyArt
JRubyArt is a wrapper for Processing in the Ruby language, that runs on the Java platform using JRuby.
Quil
Quil is an interactive animation library for Clojure and ClojureScript based on Processing.
