Glossary

Code (in our context) is a synonymous with computer program.

Coding is the same as programming. [Some people have tried to introduce a distinction between the “programming” and “coding”. There are several different ways of using these two words to mean two different things. None of these distinctions is widely adopted.]

A computer program is a set of instructions that tells a computer what to do. When it’s clear from context, a computer program can be called a program.

JavaScript is a programming language. JavaScript is one of the three core technologies of the World Wide Web. (The other two are HTML and CSS.)

Processing is “an open-source graphical library and integrated development environment (IDE) built for the electronic arts, new media art, and visual design communities with the purpose of teaching non-programmers the fundamentals of computer programming in a visual context“ (Wikipedia). We will not work directly with Processing in this course, but it is useful to know this because we will make extensive use of p5.js (see).

Programming is the process of designing and building computer programs.

A programming language (or computer programming language) is a system of rules that describe how text text is interpreted as instructions to a computer. Some programming languages are C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Lisp, Logo, MATLAB, PHP, Python, Ruby, Scheme.

P5.js is a port of Processing to JavaScript. What you learn in p5.js you will be able to apply to Processing, and vice versa.

A Sketch is a program in Processing and p5.js (next slides). In some languages, a program is also called a script.

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