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Show HN: Teachcraft – Learn Python through Minecraft

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Re: Show HN: Teachcraft – Learn Python through Minecraft

#21

Post by danso »

Confiks wrote: post #3

Looks like a great guide to get started with coding with Minecraft. There have been some efforts over the years, but this looks really complete. One obstacle for schools to get started with this however, is buying all the Minecraft licenses. To this end, I've been toying around a bit with an open source Minecraft clone called Minetest lately [1][2]. It's surprisingly complete, and could also have great uses in (progr…

Sorry to go a bit off-topic, but how did school districts in the 80s justify buying licenses for Oregon Trail and other games of the era? The cost of OT must have been equivalent if not much more (inflation-adjusted) than even the consumer price for Minecraft. Admittedly, school funding has changed since then and it may be especially hard in today's assessment-focused ("teaching to the test", as some might say) paradigm to argue that Minecraft is a qualifying expenditure. But Apple gave away computers to get an inroad in education. Free Minecraft for schools might be a reasonable giveaway for Microsoft.

Re: Show HN: Teachcraft – Learn Python through Minecraft

#22

Post by cjdell »

Confiks wrote: post #19
cjdell wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Emscripten, tried a while back to port "Craft" (lightweight Minecraft in C). Proved it could work but needs some work! :-D https://github.com/cjdell/Craft/commit/c0162acb36ed8f538c6bf... See it working here: http://wb.buz.co/craft/main.html In the end I ended up making this instead from scratch: http://webblocks.uk/ I might return to it though because my version isn't as functional! I

Looks good. Craft is simple enough to easily port to Emscripten. Another port of Craft I found a while ago is NetCraft: https://github.com/satoshinm/NetCraft

Wow, nice find! :-D

Re: Show HN: Teachcraft – Learn Python through Minecraft

#23

Post by openfuture »

lowpro wrote: post #20

I was thinking about this just yesterday, and wondering if python could be taught in game like ComputerCraft uses Lua, except for python. Maybe certain object/data types could have a physical presence like a database could be a shelf, and hooking them up physically would create a real database will multiple tables that could be interacted with in the game. I was thinking about this more in the sense of actually helpi…

I've had the same idea for a while, it'd be amazing if someone made this sub-game in minetest!

Re: Show HN: Teachcraft – Learn Python through Minecraft

#24

Post by traverseda »

Filligree wrote: post #10
traverseda wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An open source project of mine, pycraft, has recently gotten some renewed attention. We learned that we were doing rendering very inefficiently, using "static" when we should have done stream. Our big project right now is making it easier for contributors to contribute. https://github.com/traverseda/pycraft

> We learned that we were doing rendering very inefficiently, using "static" when we should have done stream. Can you expand on this? Did you use 'static' for VBOs that were only used for one or two frames?

I can not. Graphics aren't my thing. All I can say was that there was quantifiable improvement.

But that's the beauty of open source. If you'd like to investigate it yourself it's the first issue. Getting someone competent involved in the graphics subsystem is another priority ;p

Re: Show HN: Teachcraft – Learn Python through Minecraft

#25

Post by offbyone »

purrcat259 wrote: post #8
navbaker wrote: post #4

The instructions say to install Python 2.7. Does this not support 3.x?

Its not like the people who will learn off this still be writing 2.x code in 2020... right? :) /s

Getting 3.x to work with mcpi is actually super easy; the library works nearly out of the box, and the code is basically the same as far as I can tell.

Re: Show HN: Teachcraft – Learn Python through Minecraft

#26

Post by j_s »

Filligree wrote: post #10
traverseda wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An open source project of mine, pycraft, has recently gotten some renewed attention. We learned that we were doing rendering very inefficiently, using "static" when we should have done stream. Our big project right now is making it easier for contributors to contribute. https://github.com/traverseda/pycraft

> We learned that we were doing rendering very inefficiently, using "static" when we should have done stream. Can you expand on this? Did you use 'static' for VBOs that were only used for one or two frames?

https://github.com/traverseda/pycraft/issues/89

Re: Show HN: Teachcraft – Learn Python through Minecraft

#27

Post by corobo »

Confiks wrote: post #3

Looks like a great guide to get started with coding with Minecraft. There have been some efforts over the years, but this looks really complete. One obstacle for schools to get started with this however, is buying all the Minecraft licenses. To this end, I've been toying around a bit with an open source Minecraft clone called Minetest lately [1][2]. It's surprisingly complete, and could also have great uses in (progr…

> buying all the Minecraft licenses

All the schools I know of have an iPad per child these days. I doubt it's an issue [Edit: Ok roger that, not all schools. Consider me told]

There's also this https://education.minecraft.net/

Re: Show HN: Teachcraft – Learn Python through Minecraft

#28

Post by iso-8859-1 »

corobo wrote: post #27
Confiks wrote: post #3

Looks like a great guide to get started with coding with Minecraft. There have been some efforts over the years, but this looks really complete. One obstacle for schools to get started with this however, is buying all the Minecraft licenses. To this end, I've been toying around a bit with an open source Minecraft clone called Minetest lately [1][2]. It's surprisingly complete, and could also have great uses in (progr…

> buying all the Minecraft licenses All the schools I know of have an iPad per child these days. I doubt it's an issue [Edit: Ok roger that, not all schools. Consider me told] There's also this https://education.minecraft.net/

Not all schools are as rich as all the schools you know... How can you even...

Re: Show HN: Teachcraft – Learn Python through Minecraft

#29

Post by chickenfries »

corobo wrote: post #27
Confiks wrote: post #3

Looks like a great guide to get started with coding with Minecraft. There have been some efforts over the years, but this looks really complete. One obstacle for schools to get started with this however, is buying all the Minecraft licenses. To this end, I've been toying around a bit with an open source Minecraft clone called Minetest lately [1][2]. It's surprisingly complete, and could also have great uses in (progr…

> buying all the Minecraft licenses All the schools I know of have an iPad per child these days. I doubt it's an issue [Edit: Ok roger that, not all schools. Consider me told] There's also this https://education.minecraft.net/

> All the schools I know of have an iPad per child these days.

This might shock you, but that's not exactly common. Also, an iPad has a lot more potential uses than a Minecraft license.

Re: Show HN: Teachcraft – Learn Python through Minecraft

#30

Post by [deleted] »

iso-8859-1 wrote: post #28
corobo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> buying all the Minecraft licenses All the schools I know of have an iPad per child these days. I doubt it's an issue [Edit: Ok roger that, not all schools. Consider me told] There's also this https://education.minecraft.net/

Not all schools are as rich as all the schools you know... How can you even...

[deleted]
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