Besides going through a curriculum here on freecodecamp, I am also going through the lessons on Khan Academy. I notice that they are using something called processingJS. I looked it up to see what it was (because I thought it was javascript before) and I found that it was something that translated some code into javascript(is that right?) Also, I noticed that most of the commands I have been typing in it so far can also be typed in html, commands such as “ellipse”, etc.
It is just a JavaScript library.
I’ve never heard of it.
According to ProcessingJS’s web site, it’s…
Processing.js is a JavaScript library that lets you write Processing code that is then translated into JavaScript and embedded in a webpage.
(Also not that it says it is no longer supported).
I didn’t know what Processing was, on its web site it says…
Processing is a flexible software sketchbook and a language for learning how to code. Since 2001, Processing has promoted software literacy within the visual arts and visual literacy within technology. There are tens of thousands of students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists who use Processing for learning and prototyping.
If you want to learn protypying and such, then it might be worthwhile. (I don’t know that side of things, maybe it’s not.) Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother.
If you want to learn JS, study JS.
What @kevinSmith say, particularly this:
Processing.js (which is obselete now, superceded by p5.js) is really good. But it is an artistic and educational tool. You can learn JS using it, but it purposefully hides much of the stuff you’d want to learn if your aim was to build software.
The fact processing.js/p5 uses JS isn’t as important as giving the ability to create, which is probably going to work against you if your aim is to learn JS (YMMV)
If you’re a teacher, maybe you want to explain basic programming concepts like loops and variables: you can use this because it is easy to make fun interesting stuff appear on screen. Or say you’re an artist and you want to generate images that react to user input or music or whatever: you don’t want to write all of the code to set that up, you just want to plug stuff in.
If you want to go into graphics, it’s a good introduction because it abstracts away much of the low level shader stuff. Or games, reasonable into to applying maths required. Or areas like signal processing. Or if you’re an artist.