The Processing Environment

Abstract

Processing, besides being a language of sorts, is an integrated development environment (IDE)—an IDE created by artists for artists. The Processing development environment is simple to learn and use, and doesn’t add to the complexity of learning to program, as with many other IDEs. In fact, the Processing IDE really does substantially simplify the process of coding, even for absolute beginners. Even Flash, which is another very popular IDE of sorts, also geared toward artists, has a steep learning curve, and its complexity can get in the way on pure coding projects. In contrast, the Processing IDE has a well-designed interface and core functionality that allows you to work efficiently; it’s a huge improvement over working in your old text editor