Processing is a language that was built to be run and parsed on a native JAVA client. So processing 'sketches' would be created and then run on the JAVA client which would process them and create the graphics, animations, text, etc in a window. Then a man by the name of John Resig came into the picture and started work on creating a port of processing for JAVA to processing for JavaScript. The idea was to be able to allow those sketches of animationanimations, graphics, and interactive apps to be able to be drawn in a web browser without any plugins or extensions to install. Simply put a way to animate and 'interactify' the web and allow processing creations to 'just work' in modern browsers for users.<br />

  background Al has a very supportive view on pjspjs code samplesstudent open source and allowing processing.js to leverage the full power of the web through a hopeful explosion of this technology in the near future. He mentioned some of the work the community has been doing and how to get involved in the community through the Google group or IRC. Al talked briefly about some of the contributionsSeneca students have made already towards the project and how it is growing fast and being implemented at an increasing pace now.<br />ask ken After showing the Twitter widget demo Al proceeded to show a couple of interesting demos of how processing .js is being used on the web. One of the most interesting ones was a visual search engine democalled 'Ask Ken'. It allows you to search for a topic and then presents you with a circular disc of results which you can then pick one and it will create an offshoot disc with a sub search of that choice and so on. It shows how even our most basic tasks like searching for information on the internet can be redefined as to how we do it.<br />