Education/Projects/ProcessingForTheWeb: Difference between revisions

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 __NOTOC__
-'''This is a draft in progress describing a proposed project to bring a complete implementation of the Processing language to the open web.'''
+'''This is a project to bring a complete implementation of the Processing language to the open web, building on the existing processing.js port and other technologies.'''
 == Summary ==
-"Processing for the Web" is a proposed Mozilla-sponsored initiative to take the Java-based [http://processing.org/ Processing] language and environment (popular for art, design, and visualization applications) and port it to the open web using standard technologies such as JavaScript, [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/the-canvas-element.html Canvas], etc.
+Processing for the Web is a initiative (under the auspices of the [[Education|Mozilla Education]] program) to create a complete and robust port of the Java-based [http://processing.org/ Processing] language and environment (popular for art, design, and visualization applications) to the open web, using standard technologies such as JavaScript, [http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/the-canvas-element.html Canvas], etc. It builds on the existing [http://processingjs.org/ processing.js] port of Processing to JavaScript.
 The goals motivating the initiative are as follows:
-* to enable Processing users to leverage the full power of the open web, and help spark a new wave of innovative uses
+* to enable Processing users to leverage the full power of the open web, and help spark a new wave of innovative uses of Processing
-* to serve as a forcing function to drive improvements in key aspects of Mozilla products and technologies, including [http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/07/tracemonkey-overview/ JavaScript performance], [https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Drawing_Graphics_with_Canvas Canvas functionality], applications of [http://labs.mozilla.com/projects/bespin/ Bespin], and others
+* to serve as a forcing function to drive improvements in key aspects of Mozilla products and technologies, including [http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/07/tracemonkey-overview/ JavaScript performance], [https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Drawing_Graphics_with_Canvas Canvas functionality], applications of [http://labs.mozilla.com/projects/bespin/ Bespin], Ubiquity, Multi-Touch and others
-* to reach out to and increase cooperation with the design, art, and new media communities, both as part of the existing [http://education.mozilla.org Mozilla Education] program and as a key component of a proposed Mozilla Media program
+* to reach out to and increase cooperation with the design, art, and new media communities, both as part of the existing [http://education.mozilla.org Mozilla Education] program and as a component of possible future Mozilla outreach efforts directed at those communities
 The initiative will incorporate the following activities:
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 * improving the underlying Mozilla infrastructure technologies required to support a powerful, robust, and conformant Processing implementation for the web
-Some activities in the initiative, in particular working on the required Mozilla technology infrastructure, would be carried out by existing Mozilla core contributors. Other activities would be done in cooperation with others; in particular we propose to package many of the needed tasks as student projects to be done by design, programming, and other students under the auspices of the Mozilla Education program
+Some activities in the initiative, in particular working on the required Mozilla technology infrastructure, would be carried out by existing Mozilla core contributors. Other activities would be done in cooperation with others; in particular we will package many of the needed tasks as student projects to be done by design, programming, and other students under the auspices of the Mozilla Education program.
 == What is Processing? ==
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 == Why Processing for the Web? ==
-Why do "Processing for the Web"? Given Processing's Java syntax and heritage, wouldn't it make more sense to encourage people to move to using web technologies like JavaScript and Canvas directly, perhaps supplemented by JavaScript toolkits where appropriate? And even if porting Processing to the web is a good idea, why should Mozilla get involved?
+Why re-implement Processing in the context of the web? Given Processing's Java syntax and heritage, wouldn't it make more sense to encourage people to move to using web technologies like JavaScript and Canvas directly, perhaps supplemented by JavaScript toolkits where appropriate? And even if porting Processing to the web is a good idea, why should Mozilla get involved?
 For the reasons discussed below, we believe that this project can bring real benefits to the Processing community, to Mozilla products and the Mozilla community, and ultimately to the open web.
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 * It helps get more people involved in using Processing by lowering the barrier to entry: potential Processing developers would not have to download and install the Processing envronment, but could develop and run Processing sketches directly in their browsers. The resulting sketches could also be viewed in any modern browser, without the need for browser Java plugins.
 * It would help enable new types of Processing uses that leverage the power of the web, for example to access web-based data and services, enable web-based user interaction and collaboration, and so on.
-* Last but not least, it could also help enable easier collaboration on development of Processing applications, given suitable support in the underlying web-based Processing development environment.
+* Last but not least, it could also help enable easier collaboration on development of Processing applications, given suitable support in an underlying web-based Processing development environment.
 A high-quality web-based Processing implementation could help spark a new wave of innovative uses of Processing. These would be valuable both for their own sake and also for demonstrating and promoting the power of the open web technologies that made Processing for the web possible.
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 * JavaScript performance. In order to compete with the traditional Java-based Processing implementation the web-based implementation of Processing will need to have performance for basic language operations that is comparable to that of Java&mdash;which means comparable to C/C++ performance, given the capabilities of today's Java compilers. Recent advances in JavaScript performance provided by the [http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/07/tracemonkey-overview/ Tracemonkey], [http://webkit.org/blog/214/introducing-squirrelfish-extreme/ Squirrelfish], and [http://code.google.com/p/v8/ V8] JavaScript engines have helped narrow the performance gap in modern browsers like Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. The process of testing a wide variety of existing Processing applications on a JavaScript-based Processing implementation will likely provide a wealth of information on potential areas where further performance improvements are needed.
 * Canvas [https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Drawing_Graphics_with_Canvas functionality] and [http://ajaxian.com/archives/rendering-performance-in-canvas-compared-to-svg-and-vml performance]. The heart of Processing is image creation and manipulation; the current Processing implementation features no less than [http://processing.org/reference/environment/#Rendering_modes four different rendering modes] to enable developers to achieve the fastest graphics performance possible for their particular uses of Processing. Adopting Canvas as the underlying graphics interface for Processing on the Web could help drive improvements to Canvas performance and functionality (e.g., adding [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Canvas:3D 3D support]).
-* Applications of [http://labs.mozilla.com/projects/bespin/ Bespin] and similar technologies. As noted above, one of the nice things about the Processing environment is that it offers a simple straightforward interface for novices to start creating Processing "sketches". Any Processing for the Web implementation will need to duplicate this ease of use, and could also add other features enabled by the web environment, such as storing code in the close and providing easy but powerful ways to collaborate with others on sketch development. Processing on the Web could be a significant "customer" for Bespin, "a Mozilla Labs experiment that proposes an open, extensible web-based framework for code editing", and could help spur Bespin's transition from an experimental prototype to an actual product.
+* Applications of [http://labs.mozilla.com/projects/bespin/ Bespin] and similar technologies. As noted above, one of the nice things about the Processing environment is that it offers a simple straightforward interface for novices to start creating Processing "sketches". Any Processing for the Web implementation will need to duplicate this ease of use, and could also add other features enabled by the web environment, such as storing code in the cloud and providing easy but powerful ways to collaborate with others on sketch development. Processing on the Web could be a significant "customer" for Bespin, "a Mozilla Labs experiment that proposes an open, extensible web-based framework for code editing", and could help spur Bespin's transition from an experimental prototype to an actual product.
 Just as a previous generation of advanced web applications drove browser vendors to improve browser performance and functionality, we believe that Processing for the Web can be a real-world application that can spur Mozilla and other browser vendors to provide solid high-performance implementations of the HTML5 family of technologies.
 === It's good for the Mozilla community ===
-As has been said many times, Mozilla products like Firefox are not ends in themselves but rather a means to an end, namely creating an open web that is open, transparent, participatory, distributed, and hackable, and otherwise embodies the ideals of the Mozilla Manifesto.
+As has been said many times, Mozilla products like Firefox are not ends in themselves but rather a means to an end, namely creating an open web that is [http://commonspace.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/what-makes-the-web-better/ open, transparent, participatory, distributed, and hackable], and otherwise embodies the ideals of the [http://www.mozilla.org/about/manifesto.en.html Mozilla Manifesto].
+In order to achieve this goal we need to continue to grow and strengthen the Mozilla community itself, in order to increase our ability to create new products and technologies for the open web, as well as reach out and work with other communities with similar goals, in order to grow the constituency of people leveraging the open web and promoting its values.
-* to reach out to and increase cooperation with the design, art, and new media communities, both as part of the existing [http://education.mozilla.org Mozilla Education] program and as a key component of a proposed Mozilla Media program
+The Processing for the Web project could help achieve both these goals:
+* Computer science and programming students could work on a wide variety of [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Education/ComputerScience#Finding_a_good_student_project student projects] related to Mozilla platform infrastructure needed for Processing for the Web. These would include not just coding but also performance testing and bug fixing, technical documentation, etc.
+* Due to the roots of Processing in the arts and visualization, the Processing for the Web project offers an entry point into the Mozilla project for students studying design and related topics. This includes not only creating and testing new Processing applications on top of Processing for the Web, but also helping to design and build the user experience for the Processing on the Web development environment.
+Processing for the Web offers an opportunity to strengthen existing Mozilla Education initiatives directed at faculty and students in computer science programs, and also to leverage Mozilla Labs initiatives (most notably the [http://labs.mozilla.com/2009/01/introducing-the-design-challenge/ Design Challenge series]) of interest to faculty and students in design programs. Given the popularity of Processing within the digital art and data visualization communities, the Processing for the Web program could also provide a key component for use in the [[Drumbeat/Challenges/Visualize_the_Web|Visualize the Web]] project proposed as part of the [[Drumbeat|Mozilla Drumbeat]] initiative.
+== Technical strategy ==
+=== Relevant technologies ===
+The starting point for Processing on the Web is the existing [http://processingjs.org/ processing.js] JavaScript port of Processing originally created by John Resig of Mozilla and now being developed by a  [http://processingjs.org/community growing community]. Processing.js provides support for the Java-based Processing language syntax, along with an implementation of the various Processing library functions.
+Processing.js is usable for many Processing applications but is [http://processingjs.org/reference/articles/comparing-processing not yet fully compatible] with the original Processing implementation. A list of what still needs to be done is available [[Education/Projects/ProcessingForTheWeb/Tasks|here]].  It also does not provide a web-based development environment, though projects like Robert O'Rourke's [http://www.sanchothefat.com/blog/53/hascanvas HasCanvas] provide an initial take on what such an environment might look like.
+The [https://bespin.mozilla.com/ Bespin] project could provide the underlying technology to support online creation and editing of Processing code. The challenge is to provide a Processing for the Web environment that is simple enough for complete novices to pick up quickly, compatible enough with the original Processing environment that existing Processing users can be immediately productive, and powerful and extendable enough to provide good support for advanced tasks such as debugging and performance optimization.
+=== Other relevant projects ===
+[http://openprocessing.org/ OpenProcessing] (by Sinan Aşçıoğlu) allows people to share their Processing sketches ("a Flickr for Processing", to paraphrase one comment about it). It is an interesting example of a site that likely could benefit greatly from a Processing for the Web implementation.
+[http://opencode.media.mit.edu/tool/open_code/info OpenCode] (by Kyle Buza and Takashi Okamoto) is an alternative attempt to create a web equivalent of the Processing desktop environment. To quote from the website, "What Processing has done for simplified graphics programming, OpenCode hopes to do for simplified access and interaction with Web-accessible content." It can be thought of as a Java-based Processing environment "in the cloud"; Processing sketches are based to a server to be compiled into applets, and the resulting applets are run in the user's browser using the Java plugin. The environment includes special libraries to enable interaction with web services, and advanced users can write their own libraries in Java.
+=== High-level tasks ===
+The following are some possible high-level tasks for this project:
+* Address outstanding bugs and feature deficiencies for processing.js vs. the original Java-based Processing implementation. For more information on what needs doing see [http://processing-js.lighthouseapp.com Processing.js Lighthouse tickets]. The [[Education/Projects/ProcessingForTheWeb/Tasks|old task list]] is being transcribed into Lighthouse tickets.
+* Surface and address [[Education/Projects/ProcessingForTheWeb/Performance|bugs or performance]] issues in the Mozilla JavaScript engine and/or Canvas that prevent processing.js from offering comparable performance to the Java-based implementation of Processing.
+* Look at Bespin architectural or other changes that would be needed in order to support a web-based development environment for Processing.
+* Design and implement a first-cut prototype for a full web-based Processing environment.
+* (Longer-term) Create a full Canvas 3D implementation and hook it into processing.js.
+* (Longer-term) Look at possibilities for adding web-centric functionality to Processing (e.g., new functions to access web-based services from Processing sketches).
+* (Longer-term) Look at possibilities for adding collaborative capabilities to a web-based Processing environment.
+=== Current status and project team ===
+[http://www.hyper-metrix.com/ Al MacDonald] (F1LT3R on IRC) is providing advice and support to the project and is serving as the de facto technical lead.
+[http://vocamus.net/dave/ Dave Humphrey] (humph on IRC) has recruited [http://zenit.senecac.on.ca/wiki/index.php/Processing.js#Project_Leader.28s.29 several students] at Seneca College to work on this project, as well as talking to faculty at other institutions who'd also like their students to be involved. Thus far several students at the [http://www.univ-evry.fr/en/index.html Université Evry Val d'Essonne] in France are also participating, as part of the "[http://comete.info.univ-evry.fr/ Course on Mozilla Education and Technologies @ Evry]" (CoMETE) taught by Didier Courtaud (desiderious on IRC).
+For the project status as of December 1, 2009, see Dave Humphrey's blog post "[http://vocamus.net/dave/?p=910 Update on the Processing for the Web Project]". For ongoing information about the project, including how to get involved, check out the [http://processingjs.org/community processing.js community page].
 == Notes ==
-* Should address the question of why bring Processing to the web, from the perspective of why this is good for Processing and its users, why it is good for the web in general, etc.
+''This section is for reviewer feedback, suggested revisions and additions, etc.''
-* Address educational tie-in explicitly.
-* Need to address objection of why we shouldn't just focus instead on JavaScript + Canvas, perhaps with new toolkits. (i.e., Processing API but with JavaScript control logic, not Java syntax)
+* This project could be renamed "Processing for the Open Web" (or "Processing On the Web"), with the acronym "POW" (or even "POW!" :-)
-* Should lay out high-level tasks in the project, and how each one might be addressed.
+* It's been proposed that as much of the work as possible be done by students under the auspices of the Mozilla Education program. We need a good analysis of the various work that would be required, and how much could be "outsourced" to students.