Processing: a programming handbook for visual designers and artists (2nd ed.)

摘要

As a computer science (CS) instructor, one of the teaching practices that most irks me is the teaching of programming languages via lectures using PowerPoint or PDF overheads. Even without moving completely to the practice of "flipped teaching," I have always felt there should be a better way of making the teaching of programming more exciting, particularly when teaching an audience that does not (yet) profess a strong interest in programming. I have tried using both Python and OCaml interactively in lectures, with I believe a good deal of success. The interactive nature of simply firing up the interpreter and developing code in front of the audience's eyes makes for a lively teaching session. Unfortunately, it is more difficult to do this with the traditional imperative/object-oriented languages. Having to start with the magical incantations of public, float, abstract, and so on takes some of the spontaneity away. The choice of first examples also becomes important: beyond printing "Hello, World!" most Java and C tutorials move to numerical calculations, which may not be of interest to all potential programmers.