The Nature of Code

Introduction

Over a decade ago, I self-published The Nature of Code, an online resource and print book exploring the unpredictable evolutionary and emergent properties of nature in software via the creative coding framework Processing. It’s the understatement of the century to say that much has changed in the world of technology and creative media since then, and so here I am again, with a new and rebooted version of this book built around JavaScript and the p5.js library. The book has a few new coding tricks this time, but it’s the same old nature—birds still flap their wings, and apples still fall on our heads.

What Is This Book?

At ITP/IMA (Tisch School of the Arts, New York University), I’ve been teaching a course titled Introduction to Computational ...