I’m a long-time fan of Processing, a free open source programming language and development environment focused on teaching coding in the context of visual arts. It’s why I’m so excited that the latest version, Processing 3.0.1, now officially supports Raspberry Pi. Just as Sonic Pi lets you make your first sound in just one line of code, Processing lets you draw on screen with just one line of code. It’s that easy to get started. But don’t let that fool you, it’s a very powerful and flexible language and development environment.

We owe a huge thank you to Gottfried Haider, who did the heavy lifting to get Processing running smoothly on the Raspberry Pi and create a hardware input/output library. That’s right, this version of Processing works with the GPIO pins right out of the box. Gottfried says:

I’m excited about having Processing on the Raspberry Pi and other low-cost desktop machines. In the last few years we’ve seen a shift away from easily accessible environments, towards concepts such as mobile platforms, specialized internet-of-things devices and cloud computing. As someone who got into programming by tinkering around with the open and readily available platforms of the time, I believe it’s important to have initiatives such Raspberry Pi and Processing, to promote software literacy and to encourage a future where computers remain a read/write medium.

If you’re new to Processing, please take a look at our newest resource, Introduction to Processing. Not only does it get you started programming with Processing on the Raspberry Pi, but it also covers basic hardware input/output. As with all of our free resources, we welcome you to contribute enhancements and fixes. For those of you who prefer something more in-depth, Processing co-founders Ben Fry and Casey Reas recently released a second edition of their book Getting Started with Processing, published by Maker Media.

If you want to jump right in, you can download and install Processing from the terminal with this command:

curl https://processing.org/download/install-arm.sh | sudo sh

Or go to Processing’s downloads page to download and install it on your own.