Beautiful JavaScript

CHAPTER THREE

How to Draw a Bunny

Jacob Thornton

This chapter is not about rendering rabbits with JavaScript.

This chapter is about language and the difference between what it means to draw a “rabbit” and what it means to draw a “bunny.”

This chapter is not a tutorial. It’s an exegesis. This chapter is at play.

What Is a Rabbit?

So she was considering, in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

Lewis Carroll, Down the Rabbit Hole

A “rabbit” is an animal you might find in a field, forest, or pet shop. It is a gregarious plant-eater with a short tail and floppy ears. It is an actual rabbit existing in reality. A “rabbit” cannot talk to itself. A “rabbit” does not run late. From this point forward, when we speak of rabbits, we speak of these ordinary, everyday rabbits.

For the purposes of this chapter, to “draw a rabbit” is to apply various drawing techniques in such a way as to render an image of a rabbit indistinguishable from the actual rabbit itself. It is to approach a level of realism on par with that of a photograph. A rabbit drawing is strictly referential. It strives to be a copy.

Drawing a rabbit is mechanical and spec-based. There is a correct way to draw a rabbit and an incorrect way to draw a rabbit.

When you draw a rabbit, ...