P5 Article Article

Introduction

p5.js is a JavaScript library for creative coding, with a focus on making coding accessible and inclusive for artists, designers, educators, beginners, any anyone else!

p5 is free and open source

It was developed in 2013 by Lauren McCarthy, it is a native JS alternative to Processing.js.

Features

p5 hosts many different features, these are similar to HTML5 Canvas. These include:

Creating Canvas and typical Canvas functionality (such as lines, shapes, polygons, transforms, no contexts though)
Mouse and Touch interaction
Asynchronous calls and file loading
Browsers functions and native JavaScript
Instantiation / Namespace
Additional Libraries
Online web editor alternative

Pros/Cons

P5 has its pros and cons:

Pros	Cons
Accessible Documentation - Reference documentation and lots of examples are available directly on the p5 website	No built-in rendering - If looking for something to build UIs with or similar, one might be disappointed by the lack of any pre-defined UI element objects and such it p5.js. One has to write all the rendering code for any objects one includes, integrating it appropriately with the loop.
Easiest to learn to obtain high grade results - It isnt too hard to figure out how to program in p5	Similar to Canvas but a different way of implementing and it has to be perfect, otherwise it doesnt work, it is hard to debug when using p5 when importing it into js files.
Great community - p5 users benefit from the Processing community's 15+ years of growth and discovery. Processing code can easily be converted to p5.	You need the Internet to be able to use p5 (if you are using a CDN)
General Programming Concepts - As a continuation of the Processing project, this framework helps in understanding the general programming concepts that goes beyond drawing (connecting electronics, using sounds or the webcam etc).	A lot of hassle if you don't know programming at first.

Extra Programs

Other JS Libraries - Graphic.js, D3.js, Chart.js, Paper.js, Three.js
Front End Web Techs - HTML, CSS, JavaScript
IDE's and Code Editors - Visual Studio, Notepad++, p5 Web Editor
Related technologies - WebGL, Processing.js, SVG, HTML5 Canvas

Sources

Summary

In conclusion:

p5 is an amazing library to use, especially to make graphics. The quality of the graphics that p5 produces are very sharp and are very good to use. It is relatively easy to set up using a CDN.