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Getting Started

👋 Welcome to Generative Art!

This getting started guide will get you up and running with all the software and tools you need for this course. This guide ends with a couple of resources to prepare you for writing JavaScript and P5.js.

Text Editor

If you don’t have one yet, install a text editor. It doesn't really matter which one you pick, as long as you feel comfortable using it. However, we do recommend moving away from Brackets, other editors offer better customizability. VSCode is our recommended choice but there are others. Atom and Sublime are both also good choices.

Take some time to learn the interface and features of VSCode. If you know your way around the interface, coding will be easier. Feeling comfortable with your tools is very important when writing code. Take some time to set-up your colour theme, fonts etc. Live Server is a handy extension to preview what you are working on.

GitHub

If you haven’t already, sign up for GitHub. Take some time to set up your GitHub profile. Include your name, a profile picture, and a URL to your homepage. Teachers will appreciate it if you upload a representing profile and pick a username that closely resembles your real name. Silly pictures are allowed! You’re also allowed to stay anonymous online for this course by omitting sensitive information.

Create a repository on your account called generative-art. Add the contents of this basic_website.zip folder to the repository and enable GitHub pages. Here's a video from another course that will help you set-up your repository.

Learn

During this course we'll be using P5.js a JavaScript library for creative coding. We'll cover some of the details when the course starts but it's a good idea to already learn a bit about the programming language JavaScript and the P5.js library.

Introduce yourself!

Wow, you did it! Virtual high five! 🖐 Now you can introduce yourself to your teacher and class. Open an issue on our GitHub issue tracker. You can pick what are called issue templates. Pick the Introduction template and fill in the details, then submit. 🚨 Make sure you never publicly share you name and student number in combination and don't put things you want to keep private in your public repository!

— Danny