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tromp
Given the contents:

    1. VECTORS
    2. FORCES
    3. OSCILLATION
    4. PARTICLE SYSTEMS
    5. PHYSICS LIBRARIES
    6. AUTONOMOUS AGENTS
    7. CELLULAR AUTOMATA
    8. FRACTALS
    9. THE EVOLUTION OF CODE
    10. NEURAL NETWORKS
a title "The Code of Nature" would also seem appropriate...
beepbooptheory
Yes that is the play on words here! They are all aiming to simulate physical processes and such.
tromp
Yep; they also could have gone with "Natural code", or "Code natural" ...
thetrustworthy
The author said a 2nd edition will be out later this year: https://twitter.com/shiffman/status/1646961509833011201?s=20
newswasboring
The homepage puts "Receive lifetime book updates for free", I guess that would mean second editions?
shiffman
My intention is to send free digital updates to those who purchased the original 2012 PDF via the website, I have a list via fetchapp.com. I will probably remove this message for the new version. Print editions or other proprietary ebook formats (like kindle, etc) will be for purchase only for the new version. More: https://github.com/nature-of-code/natureofcode.com/pull/42
autopilot23
This is one of the first books I read when learning how to code :)
phonescreen_man
Great author and one of the best teachers! This book is being rewritten to use JavaScripts p5js- original version is written for Java processing.
macintux
Submitted every few months for years now, not a lot of conversation.

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=natureofcode.com

Discussions with more than one comment:

- Release announcement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4709551

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6300510

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8060179

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14410201

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19632361

dang
Thanks! Macroexpanded:

The Nature of Code - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23157721 - May 2020 (1 comment)

The Nature of Code – evolutionary and emergent properties of nature in code - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19632361 - April 2019 (8 comments)

Generative Coding – “The Nature of Code” Ported to Three.js - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18122940 - Oct 2018 (12 comments)

The Nature of Code (2012) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14410201 - May 2017 (16 comments)

The Nature of Code: Simulating Natural Systems with Processing [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13295139 - Jan 2017 (1 comment)

The Nature of Code - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8060179 - July 2014 (15 comments)

Basics of Neural Networks with example codes and illustrations - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6300510 - Aug 2013 (29 comments)

* The Nature of Code free online book with live examples* - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5153895 - Feb 2013 (2 comments)

Daniel Shiffman launches "The Nature of Code" online for free - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4709551 - Oct 2012 (11 comments)

pgayed 

  (map link-expander list-of-links)
I wonder what it looks like in Arc. Does HN keep any of its codebase public?
dang
There's a very old version at http://arclanguage.com/, but the current codebase isn't public.

FWIW, here's the Arc code I wrote to generate a string of the form "Italicized Title - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=num - Month Year (n comments)". The variable i stands for item, which is HN's term for a post (story, comment, or poll):

  (def biblioref (i)
    (let mon (monthdate (date i!time) 'short)
      (tostring
       (if (astorypoll i)
           (do (pr "*" (subst i!title "*" "\\*") "* - " (fullurl:item-url i!id)
                   " - " mon" (" (plural i!klive "comment") ")"))
           (do (pr (fullurl:item-url i!id))
               (unless (is mon (monthdate (date) 'short))
                 (pr " (" mon ")")))))))
Not that elegant but maybe not too bad.
pgayed
I like it!

Here's one I use to decide from a list of free-form submissions whether to generate a link or a Google search:

  (fn [pair-of]
    (let [text (get pair-of 1)]
      (cond 
        (clojure.string/starts-with? text "http")
          (list [:a {:href text} (truncate text 60)] [:br])
        :else (list [:a {:href (str "https://google.com/search?q=" text)} text] [:br]))))
Doesn't always work but works often enough! ;)
iknownothow
If you're a beginner absolutely give it a try!

I implemented all of the book almost 10 years ago in Python and pygame. I was starting to code professionally back then and it is responsible for much of the confidence I needed. It definitely is more about nature and math than code. If you're the kind of hands on learner like I am, then I'd recommend using this as a resource to learn to code first before learning about theorectical data structures. Thanks to the author, I am now in a position to buy it :)

grungegun
Loved this book.

When I first started programing, I was convinced that text applications weren't real programs, and the visual aspect of the book pulled me in to be a life-time programmer :)

who-shot-jr
Daniel Shiffman is amazing! An excellent teacher.
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sumanmichael
Such a lovely book. Try it, go fall in love with nature -o-f- and code.
rramadass
I think this book should be used to teach "Programming" (in any language) in School because it shows how to use Computers as an aid to actually learning/simulating Science which dovetails nicely with the Maths/Physics/Chemistry/Biology classes.

Teaching this way will actually motivate students to understand Science since they can program the evidence and convince themselves of the "Scientific Truth" of what they have studied.