Differences between different creative coding libraries

libraries

I've worked with Cinder previously under Windows, but have recently switched to Ubuntu. Since Cinder doesn't work on Linux (::sadface::) I've began looking for alternatives. With that in mind, could you please tell me what the differences between Processing, openFrameworks and Polycode are, and compare them to Cinder?

Specifically, I would like to know

  • If there are differences in the functionality of the packages compared to Cinder (ie. one does something that Cinder doesn't and vice versa).
  • I would also like to know how different the syntax of the package is from Cinder's.

I have already seen the following articles: here and here and have also visited the corresponding website for each of the libraries but could not find a clear and concise answer to my question.

Best Answer

The things that come to mind are that

  • Processing is the only one which is not C++ (but Java) in that bunch
  • I think openFrameworks is the one with the broadest platform support right now (Win, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, with raspberryPi incoming currently)
  • Polycode is the youngest (with no judgement if that's good or bad)
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