Название: Exploratory Programming for the Arts and Humanities, 2nd Edition
Автор: Nick Montfort
Издательство: The MIT Press
Год: 2021
Страниц: 384
Язык: английский
Формат: pdf, mobi, epub
Размер: 10.1 MB

A new edition of a book for anyone who wants to learn programming to explore and create, with exercises and projects to help readers learn by doing.

This book introduces programming to readers involved with the arts and humanities; there are no prerequisites, and no previous knowledge of programming is assumed. Nick Montfort reveals programming to be not merely a technical exercise within given constraints but a tool for sketching, brainstorming, and inquiry. He emphasizes programming's exploratory potential—its facility to create new kinds of artworks and to probe data for new ideas. The book is designed to be read alongside the computer, allowing readers to program while making their way through the chapters. It offers practical exercises in writing and modifying code and outlines "free projects" that allow learners to pursue their own interests.

Python and Processing are the main languages used in this book, although the first encounter with programming is via jаvascript - in case you thought that all programming languages had to begin with the letter p. In chapter 16, “Sound, Bytes, and Bits,” we’ll write not entire programs, but the arithmetic expressions (canonically used in the C programming language) that are central to a curious and compelling type of sound generation.

Python is a powerful, standardized, widely used language; I find that it is very good for exploration and also very suitable for new programmers. With additional modules, it can be used for image processing, to develop games, to do extensive statistical work, and for all types of purposes. Without installing anything additional, it can serve very well for simple text processing and to introduce computing.

The language commonly known as jаvascript has a very obvious virtue: it can be incorporated into HTML and can run in practically any Web browser, locally or over the Web. As recently as a few years ago, producing jаvascript code that worked consistently across browsers required time, effort, and expertise. Even then, one could quickly understand that there are benefits to using this language. Understanding and modifying some existing jаvascript programs would show that they can be very easily shared online.

My aim is to explain enough about programming to allow a new programmer to explore and inquire with computation, and to help such a person go on to learn more about programming while pursuing projects in the arts and humanities. That is, when someone finishes going through this book, typing in the code as requested and doing the exercises and projects as requested, that person will be a programmer—not particularly an expert, but a person with the ability to use computation in general ways to explore the arts and humanities. The person who completes the work in this book may be a beginning programmer but will be equipped to explore areas of intellectual interest and will be ready to learn more about programming as it becomes necessary.

“An optimal place to begin your journey into coding. Clear, concise, and of consequence.” -Wasalu Jaco, pka Lupe Fiasco IT

“Montfort has constructed an entirely unique text in the crowded ‘how-to-program’ genre by focusing on programming as a mode of inquiry and on computation as culture.” -Casey Reas, Professor, UCLA Design Media Arts