The Algorithm That Made Me Cry: Why You Should Code for Beauty
I have written a lot of code in my life. Millions of lines.
Most of it was, let’s be honest, plumbing. Moving data from a database to a webpage. Validating form inputs. Retry logic for flaky APIs.
It pays the bills. It runs the world. But it doesn’t make you feel anything.
Then I discovered Generative Art.
And for the first time in 15 years, I looked at a for loop and felt something like awe.
What is Generative Art? (The “God Mode” for Nerds)
Generative Art is the practice of abdicating control. You don’t paint the picture. You build a system, and the system paints the picture.
You are the gardener. The code is the seed. The art is the flower.
We use p5.js (based on Processing), which is a library that makes canvas drawing trivial.
function draw() { circle(mouseX, mouseY, 20); } That’s it. You’re drawing.
But then you add Math.
The Curriculum: From Chaos to Order
1. The Beauty of Randomness
In enterprise software, randomness is a bug. In art, it’s a feature. We learn to use random() and noise() (Perlin Noise) to create textures that look organic, not digital.
2. Emergence (Boids & Particles)
Have you ever watched a flock of birds and wondered how they don’t crash? It’s three simple rules. Separation. Alignment. Cohesion. We code this. You write 50 lines of code, and suddenly you have a living, breathing flock on your screen. It feels like magic. It feels like you created life.
3. Fractals & L-Systems
The world is recursive. Trees are branches on branches. Coastlines are jagged lines made of jagged lines. We use recursion to generate plants, landscapes, and alien geometries.
Why Technical People Need This
You need to remember why you loved computers in the first place.
Remember the first time you wrote 10 PRINT "HELLO", 20 GOTO 10? Remember the thrill of controlling the machine?
Corporate software development beats that out of you. It crushes it under layers of Jira tickets, Agile ceremonies, and code reviews.
Generative Art brings it back. It is pure play. It is coding for the sake of coding.
The Pitch
Come write code that doesn’t have a unit test. Come write code that generates a different result every time. Come write code that makes you stare at the screen and say, “Whoa.”
Warning: May cause intense staring at wallpaper patterns.