New starting language

[Raknarg]

My friend recently discovered something pretty cool the other day over here: http://processing.org/

As far as I can tell, it's like a simplified version of Java, and works a lot like Turing. I don't know what other people think, but it seems like it would make a nice transition between turing to other languages (cause a lot of them are structured similarly, right..? I'll look that up), or even just makes testing code without having to work around the annoyingness of things like Java a lot easier. Thought you guys might appreciate it.

Also there's no community yet, so when I get stuck with things like syntax I can't quite just ask for help now -.-'

[Tony]

Welcome to 2006 -- http://compsci.ca/blog/rapid-animation-prototyping-with-processing/

Since then, I would strongly recommend http://processingjs.org/ instead. It's the same Processing, but runs on JavaScript instead of JVM. The primary advantage is that you can get your code running in a browser without any plugin requirements.

You can still ask about your algorithms / design in General Programming here. If you need to dive deep into the underlying tech and/or syntax issues, there are Processing specific communities elsewhere, such as http://processingjs.org/community/

[mirhagk]

Phew processing is so old that my university has a course that teaches it (well teaches 1 or 2 lectures on it)

[TerranceN]

Also KhanAcademy's Computer Science section uses processingjs for its live coding environment.

[Raknarg]

Haha well that's embarassing XD thanks guys

[Tony]

Neah. It's a good find and good to share. This will certainly be new to some people around here.

[Raknarg]

Would anyone happen to know how to pass a variable into a parameter by reference rather than value in a function?

[Zren]

Raknarg @ Fri Dec 21, 2012 2:10 pm wrote:

Would anyone happen to know how to pass a variable into a parameter by reference rather than value in a function?

If you're talking about the Java based version, then you can't do so without encapsulating the variable.

Primitives (int, boolean, etc) are passed by value.
Primitive wrappers (Integer, Boolean) are immutable. Which would make a whole new object when you try to assign to it (which when used as a parameter would only last until the end of the function's scope).

This post highlights some of the wrapper objects you could use: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4319537/how-do-i-pass-a-primitive-data-type-by-reference/4319581#4319581

[Tony]

Java is always pass-by-value.

And I would guess that Processing is as well. Pointers are a difficult concept to really understand, and in many ways Processing was designed to be accessible to non-CS majors.

[Raknarg]

Alright thanks, I guess I'll just find a way tO work around that