[PD] [OT] "processing" application

[David Powers]

I agree that you will have to explain the difference to them at some
point if they really try and do any serious project with Processing,
and furthermore: if you want to learn basic programming, there's some
minimum level of math that you need, or you just aren't going to
succeed. Learning the difference between an integer and a float is
precisely the kind of thing an introductory program SHOULD teach. I
believe it is introduced on the first day of most any programming
class, like "intro to java" or "intro to C++".

I guess the problem is more, that many artists hate math and never
thought they would need it. And in the US, that's in many cases the
fault of a horrible public school system. Even I, though I have
reasonable mathematical skills, stopped doing math way too early (at
beginning calculus) - because back then (12 years ago) I never knew
I'd be doing digital audio that required more advanced math stuff. No
math teacher ever mentioned that there might be direct musical
applications for math, and besides, I was a jazz piano player back
then.

It would be interesting to use PD to teach some math stuff actually -
I'd like to see some kind of basic fft tutorial so I can explain
Mathieu's posts on doing fft in PD, for instance! ;-)

~David

On 10/13/06, Mathieu Bouchard <matju at artengine.ca> wrote:
> On Thu, 12 Oct 2006, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
>
> > Also, I think they should have used a Number object instead of ints and
> > floats, since its meant for people to learn programming.  Explaining
> > what a float is to someone who barely does math is a pain in the ass.
>
> Eventually, even if you force people to use only floats, you still have to
> explain how they work. It's just that at the level of teaching that you
> do, you are able to sweep the topic under the carpet, and the carpet is
> thick enough that you can pretend that there's no lump in it, until some
> student stumbles upon it and breaks his/her jaw, but by that time you're
> usually gone.
>
>   _ _ __ ___ _____ ________ _____________ _____________________ ...
> | Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801 - http://artengine.ca/matju
> | Freelance Digital Arts Engineer, Montréal QC Canada
>
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