This week we will begin to dig into the meat of this course by starting with p5.js.
p5.js is a JavaScript library, whose goal is to “make coding accessible for artists, designers, educators, and beginners”. It is intended to be used as a way to learn how to code at the same time that you develop skills as an media artist. This is not to say that p5 is a useless or unsophisticated tool. Even though it has been designed with the goal of making coding more approachable, p5.js is a very powerful language capable of producing complex art for the web.
p5 is a library, built on top of the JavaScript language. JavaScript is one the three languages that all web browsers are capable of understanding, interpreting, and using (along with HTML and CSS). By building p5 on top of JavaScript, your p5 sketches will be web-ready from the get go.
Before we can dive into p5, we should briefly discuss one more tool that is necessary for your work in this class. The new tool you will be using this week is the web browser. Obviously, you are already using a web browser, or you would be unable to view and read this content. But, it is new in the sense that you will need to use a web browser to view your p5 ‘sketches’. For that reason it would be good for you to better understand the nature of browsers. To do this, please read the following on the History of Web Browsers.
To learn more about p5, and what you are about to get into. Please click through to the p5.js site “hello” page and watch the video below by pressing “Click to begin”.