Exploratory Programming for the Arts and Humanities, second edition

A new edition of a book for anyone who wants to learn programming to explore and create, with exercises and projects to help readers learn by doing.

This book introduces programming to readers involved with the arts and humanities; there are no prerequisites, and no previous knowledge of programming is assumed. Nick Montfort reveals programming to be not merely a technical exercise within given constraints but a tool for sketching, brainstorming, and inquiry. He emphasizes programming's exploratory potential--its facility to create new kinds of artworks and to probe data for new ideas. The book is designed to be read alongside the computer, allowing readers to program while making their way through the chapters. It offers practical exercises in writing and modifying code and outlines "free projects" that allow learners to pursue their own interests.

Nick Montfort is Professor of Digital Media in Comparative Media Studies/Writing at MIT.

[1] Introduction 
[2] Installation and Setup 
[3] Modifying a Program
[4] Calculating and Using Jupyter Notebook
[5] Double, Double
[6] Programming Fundamentals
[7] Standard Starting Points
[8] Text I: Strings and Their Slices 
[9] Text II: Regular Expressions 
[10] Image I: Pixel by Pixel
[11] Image II: Pixels and Neighbors
[12] Statistics, Probability, and Visualization
[13] Classification 
[14] Image III: Visual Design and Interactivity
[15] Text III: Advanced Text Processing 
[16] Sound, Bytes, and Bits
[17] Onward
[Appendix A] Why Program?
[Appendix B] Contexts for Learning