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Spaghetti Code is Beautiful (If It Glows)

Programmers hate “Visual Programming.” “It’s not real code,” they say. “It’s just connecting boxes.”

TouchDesigner laughs at your text editor. TouchDesigner is high-performance C++ wrapped in a node-based interface that looks like a cyberpunk hacking minigame.

The Node Graph

In Python, if you screw up the data flow, you get a stack trace. In TouchDesigner, if you screw up the data flow, your texture turns into a glitch art masterpiece. It is Exploratory Programming. It encourages you to break things because breaking things looks cool.

Who Needs This?

  • VJs: Who want to look busy on stage.
  • Artists: Who want to projection map a building.
  • Coders: Who are tired of syntax errors.

Connect the Nodes

This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.