Computer Recreations
March 28, 2017 8:22 AM   Subscribe

If drawing your own Penrose Tilings or Mondrian-style images sounds like fun, or recreating A. K. Dewdney's simulated Wa-Tor World ecology, or solving Word Wheel puzzles; or if you'd just generally like a pool of projects, examples, and exercises to practice Python, then here you go: Learning Scientific Programming with Python.

The website is a supplement to a printed textbook, but most of the content there seems to stand well on its own (though it is not a for-absolute-beginners introduction to programming in general or Python in particular).
posted by Wolfdog (6 comments total) 57 users marked this as a favorite
 
I tried out Wa-Tor - just copy/pasting the code and running it - and it produces beautiful worlds with the default parameters. Fun.
posted by RedOrGreen at 8:55 AM on March 28, 2017


Nice. Thanks!
posted by Artful Codger at 10:41 AM on March 28, 2017


A. K. Dewdney's Scientific American columns were wonderful, as are his books. I wish he hadn't sunk into the 9/11 Trutherism dementia cesspool for a while.
posted by Chitownfats at 11:39 AM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


Yes, The Armchair Universe was very influential for me.
posted by Wolfdog at 11:46 AM on March 28, 2017


Also: Ghost Diagrams.
posted by SteelyDuran at 9:32 PM on March 28, 2017


I tried Wa-Tor in QBasic decades ago. It was interesting trying to fine-tune the parameters so life would go on.
posted by MtDewd at 8:55 AM on March 29, 2017


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