This is a really short introduction about what creative coding is, and I'm sure that it is possible to find out much more about this topic on the Internet. Nevertheless, I will try to explain how it looks from my perspective.

Creative coding is a relatively new term for a field that combines coding and design. The central part of this term might be the "coding" one—to become a creative coder, you need to know how to write code and some other things about programming in general. Another part—the "creative" one—contains design and all the other things that can be combined with coding.

Being skilled in coding and design at the same time lets you explain your ideas as working prototypes for interface designs, art installations, phone applications, and other fields. It can save time and effort that you would give in explaining your ideas to someone else so that he/she could help you. The creative coding approach may not work so well in large projects, unless there are more than one creative codes involved.

A lot of new tools that make programming more accessible have emerged during the last few years. All of them are easy to use, but usually the less complicated a tool is, the less powerful it is, and vice versa.

Cinder is one of the most powerful tools in the world of creative coding. In this chapter, we will learn what Cinder is and how to set it up on the two most popular operating systems—Mac OS X and Windows. If you have access to both and you want to do it as fast as possible, choose Mac OS X. It won't take much longer on Windows, if you have a good Internet connection.