Fractal hex flowers by Mark Seemann
The code behind the cover of Code That Fits in Your Head
A book needs a cover, but how do you choose a cover illustration for a programming book? Software development tends to be abstract, so how to pick a compelling picture?
Occasionally, a book manages to do everything right, such as the wonderful Mazes for Programmers, which also happens to have a cover appropriate for its contents. Most publishers, however, resort to pictures of bridges, outer space, animals, or folk costumes.
For my new book, I wanted a cover that, like Mazes for Programmers, relates to its contents. Fortunately, the book contains a few concepts that easily visualise, including a concept I call fractal architecture. You can create some compelling drawings based on hex flowers nested within the petals of other hex flowers. I chose to render some of those for the book cover:
I used Observable to host the code that renders the fractal hex flowers. This enabled me to experiment with various colour schemes and effects. Here's one example:
Not only did I write the program to render the figures on Observable, I turned the notebook into a comprehensive article explaining not only how to draw the figures, but also the geometry behind it.
The present blog post is really only meant as a placeholder. The real article is over at Observable. Go there to read it.
