Implement 2-d or n-d Arrays with a simple to use API (as per Vector)

[rzeta0]

Increasing access

I have over 5 years experience teaching young coders (age 7-17) and adults who have never coded before (eg artists) to code with p5js.

I learned about some of the barriers and developed simple.js to make better default choices and also to provide easier to use functions eg circle() and randomNumber().

One of the remaining big barriers is arrays. Javascript doesn't make it easy.

Like Vector, I popose an Array is implemented which makes it easy and uniform to use them.

More details here; https://discourse.processing.org/t/processing-should-define-array-just-like-it-has-vector/44840/13

Most appropriate sub-area of p5.js?

• Accessibility
• Color
• Core/Environment/Rendering
• Data
• DOM
• Events
• Image
• IO
• Math
• Typography
• Utilities
• WebGL
• Build process
• Unit testing
• Internationalization
• Friendly errors
• Other (specify if possible)

Feature request details

see discussion https://discourse.processing.org/t/processing-should-define-array-just-like-it-has-vector/44840/13

[ksen0]

Hi @rzeta0,

Thanks for raising this, data structures can definitely be a major challenge. I've just read through the Discourse thread linked, I can see that the comments in that thread show that there are multiple different understandings of the challenges that learners face, and also different possible solutions. From that thread, I could gather that the following areas of arrays could be challenging:

• Defining an array, especially with 2 or more dimensions
• Accessing individual specific cells in the array, or updating data in the array, such as using x,y
• Iterating over an array and taking an action, which in JavaScript can have a high learning barrier

Would it be useful to consider some examples (code or pseudocode) of what is especially challenging, and how a different data structure could be more accessible?

[ksen0]

Closing this issue for now - but if you (or anyone else) is interested in this discussion, I would suggest getting involved in the discussion on the public Matrix class API design. Thank you for your thoughtful suggestions!