Scripting API now in public beta • Hacker News Board

Re: Scripting API now in public beta

#71

Post by chc4 » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 2:01 AM UTC

ryl00 wrote: post #70

banhfun wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. This would have been true like 4-6 years ago when Minecraft was still in the spotlight of the mainstream. Kids today have moved onto other games like Roblox and Fortnite

Roblox seems to have a pretty good Lua mod ecosystem.

Roblox has a very good Lua ecosystem. It's on the scale of an actual featureful game engine now, with free cloud hosting and microtransactions support and developer payouts that attract would-be gamedevs. It's been growing extremely rapidly with players, and makes it very easy for kids to open up the game editor and start slapping blocks around to try and switch from "consumer" to "producer".

I'm 21. I first learned programming through Roblox when I was like 15. I don't play anymore, and haven't for years, but I have a giant friend group that also got introduced to programming through Roblox. A lot of them have gone on to work there now, and they've been making it better and better over the years.

Minecraft is giant, and there are tons of mods for it, but also the barrier to entry for making those mods is extremely high. You have to open a command line, decompile a jar and deobfuscate the bytecode and then use Java, which historically isn't the best first language to pick up for a kid. More kids have probably been introduced to coding through ComputerCraft than have gotten a mod building correctly.

Re: Scripting API now in public beta

#72

Post by rauhl » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 2:42 AM UTC

Well, it definitely sounds neat, and although I really wish it weren’t JavaScript, that’s actually a pretty good choice based on popularity. Pity it couldn’t have been TCL, Lisp, or even Scheme or Python.

I can’t wait until the modding community picks this up and figures out how to integrate it. Gonna be fun times ahead, no doubt!

As an aside, this was a bit of a surprise to me:

> you can learn more about how to sign up for that beta by clicking this line of green text

Link. Link. Doesn’t everyone know what a link is, these days?

Re: Scripting API now in public beta

#73

Post by vtesucks » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 2:53 AM UTC

rauhl wrote: post #72

Well, it definitely sounds neat, and although I really wish it weren’t JavaScript, that’s actually a pretty good choice based on popularity. Pity it couldn’t have been TCL, Lisp, or even Scheme or Python. I can’t wait until the modding community picks this up and figures out how to integrate it. Gonna be fun times ahead, no doubt! As an aside, this was a bit of a surprise to me: > you can learn more about how to sign…

I like your list but its missing the one language that I feel is most suited- Lua.

Re: Scripting API now in public beta

#74

Post by umvi » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 3:05 AM UTC

vtesucks wrote: post #73

rauhl wrote: post #72

Well, it definitely sounds neat, and although I really wish it weren’t JavaScript, that’s actually a pretty good choice based on popularity. Pity it couldn’t have been TCL, Lisp, or even Scheme or Python. I can’t wait until the modding community picks this up and figures out how to integrate it. Gonna be fun times ahead, no doubt! As an aside, this was a bit of a surprise to me: > you can learn more about how to sign…

I like your list but its missing the one language that I feel is most suited- Lua.

Do we really want kids' first experience with programming to be a language with 1-indexed arrays? That's just going to set them up for failure ;)

Re: Scripting API now in public beta

#75

Post by why_only_15 » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 3:35 AM UTC

rauhl wrote: post #72

Well, it definitely sounds neat, and although I really wish it weren’t JavaScript, that’s actually a pretty good choice based on popularity. Pity it couldn’t have been TCL, Lisp, or even Scheme or Python. I can’t wait until the modding community picks this up and figures out how to integrate it. Gonna be fun times ahead, no doubt! As an aside, this was a bit of a surprise to me: > you can learn more about how to sign…

Yeah sure I saw him with Zelda in this game

Re: Scripting API now in public beta

#76

Post by snek » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 4:31 AM UTC

benbristow wrote: post #2

Looks like the JavaScript API is ES5. Wonder if they've any plans to support ES6+?

They're using ChakraCore, with support for ES6+. you can use all your favourite `const` and `let` and `function*` etc.

Re: Scripting API now in public beta

#77

Post by destruc7i0n » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 4:45 AM UTC

danShumway wrote: post #10

This is very cool, and very exciting. My niece is really into Minecraft and has a huge interest in stuff like robotics and programming, I think in no small part because of Minecraft's influence. But because she's on the Windows 10 version it's difficult for me to help her with anything. Better, more open modding tools for Bedrock means that it's easier for me to show her stuff and pique her interest towards developin…

There's a GitHub project which uses the Android version of Bedrock and runs it "natively" on Linux/Mac/etc. systems, works pretty well too https://github.com/minecraft-linux/mcpelauncher-manifest/wik...

While the scripting API isn't yet available for Android, I found it much faster personally than running with Parallels and the like

Re: Scripting API now in public beta

#78

Post by solarkraft » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 5:23 AM UTC

davemp wrote: post #50

orf wrote: post #17

This kind of thing changes lives. I used to play a lot of counter strike source. One day I found a server mod called EventScripts, and suddenly I could make all kinds of crazy game modes on Python. I found I picked up this programming thing pretty naturally, and without that mod I doubt I would have even dabbled. The feedback loop is phenomenal and is something you simply do not get with other forms of learning. I re…

This will show my (lack of age). I organically taught myself digital logic as Minecraft slowly added redstone and its features. When it came time to pick a major computer engineering was an obvious choice and I never looked back! Minecraft will always have a special place in my heart for this reason.

Absolutely. The easily obvious purpose really means a lot (I want to make this Spleef arena automatically regenerate with Cobblestone [as quickly as possible] when X happens) to me.

Besides Redstone Minecraft also got me into Java (both by writing mods and something [Forge Mod Loader?] requiring recompilation of the jar), Lua through ComputerCraft and Sysadmining with Bukkit and PermissionsEx.

Of course it didn't only lay the foundation for my current, largely useful technical knowledge, but through playing on servers and participating in the administration (at 12) learned a lot of social skills I probably would've taken way longer to acquire otherwise.

Yeah, I like that this game exists.

Re: Scripting API now in public beta

#79

Post by solarkraft » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 5:25 AM UTC

paraboul wrote: post #64

blattimwind wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way back there used to be Metamod (which IIRC circumvented some limitation of the Half-Life engine regarding how it loaded DLLs into the game), and then AMX Mod layered on top of that, which was later replaced by AMX Mod X. This in turn used a little programming language called "Pawn". You could then write mods in Pawn, compile that to bytecode and dynamically load it into the game server. Later there was Sourcepawn.…

Fun fact, the creator of pawn / sourcemod was one of the guy working on the JIT compiler of spidermonkey (js engine) @ Mozilla : https://www.bailopan.net

Lots of people that started out in game modding end up doing some really cool stuff in other software fields too. The skill and motivation are transferable, I suppose.

Re: Scripting API now in public beta

#80

Post by solarkraft » Sun, Dec 09, 2018, 5:28 AM UTC

chc4 wrote: post #71

ryl00 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roblox seems to have a pretty good Lua mod ecosystem.

Roblox has a very good Lua ecosystem. It's on the scale of an actual featureful game engine now, with free cloud hosting and microtransactions support and developer payouts that attract would-be gamedevs. It's been growing extremely rapidly with players, and makes it very easy for kids to open up the game editor and start slapping blocks around to try and switch from "consumer" to "producer". I'm 21. I first learned…

I did both and it was certainly pretty easy to open up the Minecraft jar and change what mobs spawn in which biomes or how far a ghast fires its fire balls.

But I was already on Linux then.