Programming Experiments

These are programming experiments.  I’m writing them to experiment and get less scared of Programming in general (Teaching yourself when you are older is a little scary), and to experiment with the medium and possible messages.  Most of these would be in the category of sketches.  They’re not anything in particular, just me thinking about possibilities.

We are All Fractured Beings Now

This was written in Processing.  You will need a Java Applet thing to run it (Processing is a higher level language based off of Java, though it is currently being wrapped into a ton of other languages).  it is slightly buggy in that I can’t figure out how to create proper shatters (this is a math issue involving random calls, circles, and lines.  Actual shatter patterns are kind of strange, if you have ever looked at a shattered window.)

Other than that, it is a nearly perfect example of the interweaving process that seems to be common in Object Oriented Programming.

This is a javascript thing that I borrowed to talk about the city of Chicago:

My limits are how to create a page that refers constantly back on itself at random.  In theory, according to the code, that should be happening with the pictures.  Alas, they occur in the same order.  It would be very hard to interweave the text if you click on the image and the images as a result.  This is where I want to learn how to be a hackeress, because you can really see my limits here.

My department hated it, too literal (and they were right).  The ideal goal for something like this would be to get lost in the clicking around and in the visuals, but to still have the text make sense.  It was an interesting sketch experiement though (doesn’t help me settle down in it)

On thing I learned- all object oriented languages are very similar.  Don’t be afraid.  Make what inspires you.  And throughout the process, that way you can bug people into helping you.  Smiling people who want to learn definitely are more amenable to being helped than unhappy ones.