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The site processing.org has a beautiful gallery of projects, all with very little coding. In fact, all the most impressive simple demos I have seen in the past decade were written in Processing.

Processing. Having dealt with that age group before, I know how crucial it is to have a fast and easily understood graphics API. Processing will allow them to create great apps in just a few hours, and also teach them some useful and transferable syntax. Java or C++ would not be out of the question after a few weeks in Processing.

If you want to go the Java route, start with Processing instead of pure Java if you really want things to be easy - things like drawing take no work ("line(10,10,100,150);" on a line by itself in an empty Processing file will draw a line, just like any extreme beginner would expect...), and it's very easy to transition to real Java later on (and also possible to use it within Processing, for that matter, so you lose very little). There's also lots of 3D stuff and libraries for advanced students, and as an additional bonus you don't have to hit kids with something as complex as Eclipse or Netbeans when they're just trying to write "Hello, World!".

Processing is based on java and is all about visuals. It removes all the obnoxious set up and background necessary from lower-level languages, allowing students to focus on concepts and not minutiae. And the fact that it's output is drawing stuff on the screen keeps the reward-level high and immediate!

If there's one thing that will interest kids in programming for a lifetime, it's getting them turned on to fast and cool-looking results.

Processing books have titles such as OReilly's "Visualizing Data" and "Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists" -- seems like a good fit to me.

Try coding it up in Processing

You could visualize events as swarming butterflies!

I was about to suggest Processing as well, but I found this post at the bottom of the comments and thought I'd add weight to it.
It's unclear what data is already available, but assuming you already have raw data, something like processing would be the biggest bang for the buck in terms of converting input into beautiful imagery. (If you don't have data, most of the other threads will give you relevant tips.) Processing's even got some dead tree books devoted to it now too.

Try coding it up in Processing

You could visualize events as swarming butterflies!

MS appears to basically doing optical flow & color tracking. the above libs can do those, and more, and are great for programmers and nonprogrammers alike. tho if you really hate code, you may rather use max/msp/jitter or gem/pd.

teach him Processing; it is a programming environment build upon Java; specially developped for visual artists. I use this environment for my students of an art school (16-18 years old) and they love it ! They are not specially "programming minded" but they like the simpleness of it and the beautiful images you can create with simple code !

If I was going to encourage someone to start programming today I'd probably show them Processing:
http://processing.org/
From their site: "Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is an alternative to proprietary software tools in the same domain."

The other nice thing is that Processing is basically just a Java library so it is simple to move beyond simple visualizations, etc and do more serious Java programming.

I've been having great fun with it, I'm able to do professional work with it (using Eclipse as an IDE, etc) and there is a growing and quite vibrant community of artists and coders developing around it.

Some other possibilities:

- Python-based text adventure as a first (big) program.

- Python and PyGame based game/app for the OLPC

I would recommend processing: http://www.processing.org/ It's been described as "Java with training wheels" but I think its strength is that it demonstrates programming concepts in a visual way. A person can have a nifty animation up and running in no time. It's a very short hop from Processing to Java. I would also recommend ActionScript. It's finicky but it will give a newbie cool results quickly, and then they're hooked.

Why not try something fun and interactive like Processing?

Processing is designed as a programming environment that allows you start producing visuals immediately. In a way it reminds me of 8bit home computers when you you type a line of code and get a line drawn on the screen. No fussing about including headers, initializing structures and callbacks it's all there from the start.

Processing is a java subset (but you can use full java if you wish) geared toward "visual computation". You can see some great examples here http://complexification.net/gallery/ or on flickr (just search for "processing" tags). Project home page is here http://processing.org/

I already used it to teach something to my nephew (12yo) and he finds it great, mainly because he can have some "cool" effects and stuff on the screen and can instantly see what his code does.

Processing.org is an open souce scripting language. It seems like it should be high performance since it's just a thin layer on top of gcc. One of the things it seems like it should do well is allow people to write image processing algorithms like those demonstrated in the video. Processing will do the ugly work of grabbing the framebuffer from a web cam and then gives you access to a good mix of image processsing helper functions. There also looks to be an active and helpful user base on their forum. I haven't gotten around to actually trying it out yet, but it's pretty high on my priority list. I'm sure I could find some interesting uses for it if it turns out to be as easy to use as I think it is.

>> Anyone have any others?

Perhaps the king of all environments (at least in my mind) is Processing. It is a Java based environment created by Ben Fry and Casey Reas. It's open source, has a huge active community, and plenty of 3rd party libraries for exploring things like computer vision, audio, physics, ray tracing, AI, etc.

There are a ton of really talented people doing cool things in Processing. Too many to list here, check out the Exhibition page for things to play around with.

>> Anyone have any others?

Perhaps the king of all environments (at least in my mind) is Processing. It is a Java based environment created by Ben Fry and Casey Reas. It's open source, has a huge active community, and plenty of 3rd party libraries for exploring things like computer vision, audio, physics, ray tracing, AI, etc.

There are a ton of really talented people doing cool things in Processing. Too many to list here, check out the Exhibition page for things to play around with.

>> Anyone have any others?

Perhaps the king of all environments (at least in my mind) is Processing. It is a Java based environment created by Ben Fry and Casey Reas. It's open source, has a huge active community, and plenty of 3rd party libraries for exploring things like computer vision, audio, physics, ray tracing, AI, etc.

There are a ton of really talented people doing cool things in Processing. Too many to list here, check out the Exhibition page for things to play around with.

>> Anyone have any others?

Perhaps the king of all environments (at least in my mind) is Processing. It is a Java based environment created by Ben Fry and Casey Reas. It's open source, has a huge active community, and plenty of 3rd party libraries for exploring things like computer vision, audio, physics, ray tracing, AI, etc.

There are a ton of really talented people doing cool things in Processing. Too many to list here, check out the Exhibition page for things to play around with.

You can always pickup a jiggit at http://www.thesheepmarket.com/.

About : http://users.design.ucla.edu/~akoblin/work/thesheepmarket/
Created with : http://www.processing.org/, http://www.mturk.com/mturk/

Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is developed by artists and designers as an alternative to proprietary software tools in the same domain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Servlet and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-mode_Linux and http://www.gnusolaris.org/gswiki just to name a few- as far as "pure" java goes (it's a pain in the ass to read) their are other's that aren't: http://processing.org/ for one

I think I broadly agree that we've 'leveled up', except the original question was about entering/learning simple code rather than manipulating tools and it that context I stand by the stratospheric obesrvation.

One ray of hope though is Processing http://processing.org/ which is a simply awsome java-like script runner designed for doing really cool graphics. Worth playing with for all coders with 2 weeks to 2(+) decades experience.

Take a look at 'Processing' http://processing.org/

If that doesn't inspire potential coders to start playing around with programming I don't know what would.

Some people can do wonders with Processing as well.

Go out and get yourself a copy of Processing. It's an easy to use subset of Java that includes a simple IDE and one button application and applet export. It's very simple to learn, but can also use any Java code that you might want to write to extend it. Java in general is a bad language for casual hacking because it takes so much effort to figure out what's happening with Java's libraries. Processing takes a lot of that complication away and lets you focus on writing code that makes pretty pictures.

try:

http://mobile.processing.org/

see samples of awesome stuff you can do with Processing (p5) language here:

http://www.processing.org/exhibition/index.html

- analogAI

"Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and sound. It is used by students, artists, designers, architects, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is developed by artists and designers as an alternative to commercial software tools in the same domain."

try:

http://mobile.processing.org/

see samples of awesome stuff you can do with Processing (p5) language here:

http://www.processing.org/exhibition/index.html

- analogAI

"Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and sound. It is used by students, artists, designers, architects, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is developed by artists and designers as an alternative to commercial software tools in the same domain."

You're never, ever going to choose between Xcode and Visual Studio. Ever. You're never going to sit down and ask yourself, "Gee, should I use Xcode or Visual Studio?" Instead, you're going to have made some other decisions like "Should I write this program for the Mac or for the PC?" and those decisions will dictate whether you use Xcode or Visual Studio.

So comparing the two makes no sense whatsoever.

The only possible motivation for anybody to want to compare them would be to come to the conclusion that one or the other sucks, which is just childish nonsense.

You assume a fair bit here. Actually, I am choosing between XCode, Visual Studio and various other development environments right now. I would like to learn some new languages and techniques, and I'm interested in both XCode, Visual Studio and other very very different "environments" like "Processing" (web site). I have both PCs and Macs, and with MSDN Universal (from work) there's no cost differential between XCode and Visual Studio. I would just like a comfortable dev environment for my own personal programming projects. I got as far as running some XCode wizard (the screensaver one I think) and couldn't quite see how to do stuff in C++. I'm familiar with Visual Studio 6.0 for C++, but not Visual Studio.NET, so there would be a fair bit of relearning even if I chose the Microsoft platform. I had a quick look at Processing last year and that seems like fun, and if I have to learn something, why not something completely different like that.

If I decide to go the Java route there are a bunch more alternatives and once again PC vs. Mac is an issue, but for my own personal projects I use whichever I want as the mood takes me (my most recent project was in C++ using raw Xlib for graphics on SPARC/Solaris).

Processing is a great way to learn how to code. It is java IDE, but designed for graphically oriented people who are learning how to program. The gui is very simple and to compile a display is very easy. Check it out, it's designed for people to learn how to program with.

I agree with you that creating something visual is very rewarding but my suggestion instead of povray would be Processing.

"Processing is a programming language and environment built for the electronic arts and visual design communities. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook. It is used by students, artists, designers, architects, and researchers for learning, prototyping, and production." Where you can show the examples of Complexification on what they can achieve.

Software engineering is ofcourse more than just programming. But being able to show some nice visuals can make it all much more interesting.

well almost..

http://processing.org/

has most the stuff,
makes java appletts,
developed at MIT..

This guy, for example, has a wonderful gallery of computer-generated art. The system he uses is used both to teach programming in a visual way, and to create some great art (some of which was exposed in various museums).

You ask "is IT art?"
I think the question is "wrong", since this is art of course, but the artist is the programmer.

Also you ask "Does anyone know of other candidates for computer-created art?"
This guy, for example, has a wonderful gallery of computer-generated art. The system he usesis used both to teach programming in a visual way, and to create some great art (some of which was exposed in various museums).

Here's three free, current programming environments that are suitable for introducing programming (that no one seems to have mentioned yet.)

1. Design by Number

Created by John Maeda of MIT, this is a very simple graphics-oriented programming language. Maeda created it for artists and there an associated book. Like a sparse Logo, it keeps everything to a bare minimum. Has a web applet that allows interpreted programming to try it out.
DBN web site

2. Processing

DBN is no longer maintained, and a more complex graphics language emedded in Java (with a single-line interpreter for ease of use) has been developed by Ben Fry and Casey Reas of MIT.
Processing web site

3. Robocode

Developed at AlphaWork at IBM, this is a Java environment for programming your own virtual robots that then shoot each other. Has a 2d battle arena in which little tanks move and shoot. (Classic idea, just a nice implementation). You can program as much or as little intelligence as you wish. Designed for teaching Java.
Robocode web site

Have you seen Processing? Or MediaFrame?

I'm all about Processing (http://www.processing.org/) these days. Not the same at all, but arguably neater.

I strongly recommend at least giving them the opportunity to be exposed to processing - I've had the fortune of sitting in on one of the classes at UCLA by one of its creators, Casey Reas, and the students in there (from art courses all over, most of whom had no prior programming experience) were all digging into it like rabbits into a carrot sale. Beautiful to watch.

Some students won't like it, that's a given with any programming subject, but those that do will thank you endlessly for it.

I don't get this "Java was meant to be easy".

Visual Basic was meant to be easy, for the masses.

Java...it was meant to be secure, and multiplatform. Historically, I never saw "easy" entering into it, for the masses... (Heh...especially now with J2EE and that whole EJB mess.)

Processing on the other hand...that is meant to be easy and fun, and feels like Java meets great old school BASIC, back when we'd make little toys on our Atari 8bits and C=64s...

There are a several demos with source on the website.

-Teidou

There are a several demos with source on the website.

-Teidou

I think the Processing tool/language/environment developed by Casey Reas and Ben Fry at MIT is a great place for young people to learn. Its based on Java syntax, but has a very fast and powerful graphics API that lends itself to quickly creating visual sketches in code. Its completely free, has its own environment and compiler that is simple and easy to get started with. The website has plenty of clearly commented examples teaching concepts step by step, a nice reference page with many illustrations of the core functions and control structures of Processing, and a very helpful message board community. Most people creating in Processing share their source code, so if you see something cool you wanna try out yourself (and there is a lot of really cool work featured on the site), its just a matter of reading through the code.

So if you are a more visually inclined novice programmer like myself, in my experience, playing around in Processing can be immensely insightful and rewarding. And a lot of fun.

I think the Processing tool/language/environment developed by Casey Reas and Ben Fry at MIT is a great place for young people to learn. Its based on Java syntax, but has a very fast and powerful graphics API that lends itself to quickly creating visual sketches in code. Its completely free, has its own environment and compiler that is simple and easy to get started with. The website has plenty of clearly commented examples teaching concepts step by step, a nice reference page with many illustrations of the core functions and control structures of Processing, and a very helpful message board community. Most people creating in Processing share their source code, so if you see something cool you wanna try out yourself (and there is a lot of really cool work featured on the site), its just a matter of reading through the code.

So if you are a more visually inclined novice programmer like myself, in my experience, playing around in Processing can be immensely insightful and rewarding. And a lot of fun.

I think the Processing tool/language/environment developed by Casey Reas and Ben Fry at MIT is a great place for young people to learn. Its based on Java syntax, but has a very fast and powerful graphics API that lends itself to quickly creating visual sketches in code. Its completely free, has its own environment and compiler that is simple and easy to get started with. The website has plenty of clearly commented examples teaching concepts step by step, a nice reference page with many illustrations of the core functions and control structures of Processing, and a very helpful message board community. Most people creating in Processing share their source code, so if you see something cool you wanna try out yourself (and there is a lot of really cool work featured on the site), its just a matter of reading through the code.

So if you are a more visually inclined novice programmer like myself, in my experience, playing around in Processing can be immensely insightful and rewarding. And a lot of fun.

I think the Processing tool/language/environment developed by Casey Reas and Ben Fry at MIT is a great place for young people to learn. Its based on Java syntax, but has a very fast and powerful graphics API that lends itself to quickly creating visual sketches in code. Its completely free, has its own environment and compiler that is simple and easy to get started with. The website has plenty of clearly commented examples teaching concepts step by step, a nice reference page with many illustrations of the core functions and control structures of Processing, and a very helpful message board community. Most people creating in Processing share their source code, so if you see something cool you wanna try out yourself (and there is a lot of really cool work featured on the site), its just a matter of reading through the code.

So if you are a more visually inclined novice programmer like myself, in my experience, playing around in Processing can be immensely insightful and rewarding. And a lot of fun.

I think the Processing tool/language/environment developed by Casey Reas and Ben Fry at MIT is a great place for young people to learn. Its based on Java syntax, but has a very fast and powerful graphics API that lends itself to quickly creating visual sketches in code. Its completely free, has its own environment and compiler that is simple and easy to get started with. The website has plenty of clearly commented examples teaching concepts step by step, a nice reference page with many illustrations of the core functions and control structures of Processing, and a very helpful message board community. Most people creating in Processing share their source code, so if you see something cool you wanna try out yourself (and there is a lot of really cool work featured on the site), its just a matter of reading through the code.

So if you are a more visually inclined novice programmer like myself, in my experience, playing around in Processing can be immensely insightful and rewarding. And a lot of fun.

I think the Processing tool/language/environment developed by Casey Reas and Ben Fry at MIT is a great place for young people to learn. Its based on Java syntax, but has a very fast and powerful graphics API that lends itself to quickly creating visual sketches in code. Its completely free, has its own environment and compiler that is simple and easy to get started with. The website has plenty of clearly commented examples teaching concepts step by step, a nice reference page with many illustrations of the core functions and control structures of Processing, and a very helpful message board community. Most people creating in Processing share their source code, so if you see something cool you wanna try out yourself (and there is a lot of really cool work featured on the site), its just a matter of reading through the code.

So if you are a more visually inclined novice programmer like myself, in my experience, playing around in Processing can be immensely insightful and rewarding. And a lot of fun.