Nature of Code (2), py5 Port

[tabreturn]

Just finished my PhD and finally getting back into py5 stuff 🙂

Here's my (near-complete) Nature of Code py5 Port: https://github.com/tabreturn/py5-nature-of-code

This felt like a good project to ease back into py5. I've also wanted to do this ever since the first edition of The Nature of Code.

I've pinged Shiffman about adding it to this page: https://natureofcode.com/resources -- so hopefully it'll show up there at some point.

I'm still finishing a few chapters, but from here on it should be smooth, quick work -- no more hunting for substitute libraries or writing wrappers. Chapter 05 was a marathon, haha!

Happy to move it over to py5coding if that's suitable and once everything is properly finished.

[hx2A]

Just finished my PhD and finally getting back into py5 stuff 🙂

Congratulations, and good to hear from you!

@villares recently finished his PhD also. We should meet over Zoom and celebrate both of your achievements.

Where are you these days? It happens I was in NZ a few weeks ago. I toured the south island, hiking along the beaches, through the rainforests, and up some mountains. It's an amazing country.

Here's my (near-complete) Nature of Code py5 Port: https://github.com/tabreturn/py5-nature-of-code

This felt like a good project to ease back into py5. I've also wanted to do this ever since the first edition of The Nature of Code.

This sounds like quite an accomplishment and a big task to ease back into something. 🥇 I'm very grateful for your work here.

Happy to move it over to py5coding if that's suitable and once everything is properly finished.

That would be an amazing contribution to py5! I can't wait to go through this and see everything you've done.

[tabreturn]

Trust you had a great trip in NZ! The South Island is beautiful. I left Wellington 3 years ago -- I live in Sydney now. But I was there a few months ago for a Python conference.

Congrats @villares on the PhD 🎉

[villares]

Thank you, @tabreturn! Congrats to you too!

[villares]

It is so great to have you back into py5, @tabreturn !

[Maltiec]

Great work! And a question to all: how can we substitute lists in algorythms such as particle systems, boids and differential line growth? although it's a very handy instrument it is rather time consuming when we need to add something inside or remove. I was thinking about ordered lists, especially in differential line growth code.

[villares]

I think that for speed one might end up using vectorized operations on NumPy arrays. I found it very curious that this open-access book by Nicolas Rougier, From Python to Numpy, has so many examples matching Shifman's Nature Of Code!!!

• Random Walkers
• Cellular Automata
• Fractals
• Boids

For particle systems I have tried some spatial partitioning tricks, maybe a KD-tree like this:

• https://github.com/villares/sketch-a-day/blob/main/2025/sketch_2025_11_11/sketch_2025_11_11.py

[villares]

For adding and removing stuff, I don't know if it would help, but have you played with collections.deque ?
I've been playing with dicts for some growing structures... worth a try.

[Maltiec]

thanks! I'll make some experiments with it.

[GoToLoop]

If the order doesn't matter, we can remove an item from a list by popping the tail item and assigning it to the index of the item-to-be-removed!

Such technique fully skips the index-left-shifting of the items from a list.

It's easiest done if we traverse the list in reversed order.
Although it's still possible for regular traverse if we decrease the index by 1 when popping an item.

P.S.: We're required to test for the case when the item-to-be-removed is the tail item itself.
We do so by checking if the target_index == len(lst) - 1.
For such case, we skip the assignment part. :D