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Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

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Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#221

Post by madog »

gretch wrote: post #180
NelsonMinar wrote: post #51

It's extraordinary to me that Minecraft is both the game that has the most robust mod community out there and that the modders were working from obfuscated, decompiled Java binaries. With elaborate tooling to deobfuscate and then reobfuscate using the same mangled names. For over a decade! What dedication.

In 2004 I played an MMO game on a pirated server. The owner of the server somehow got a version of the server binary, and used a hex editor (!) to add new features to the binary over time. It's the closest I've ever see to someone literally being one of the hackers from Matrix, literally staring at hexadecimal and changing chars one at a time

Presumably they were using a decompiler e.g. IDA Pro to know what characters to change in the hex editor? I've done that before to find offsets in the binary to NOP out some function calls.

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#222

Post by haglin »

beachy wrote: post #137
userbinator wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More proof that you don't need the source code to modify software. Then again, Java has always been easy to decompile, and IMHO the biggest obstacle to understanding is the "object-oriented obfuscation" that's inherent in large codebases even when you have the original source.

First time I have heard of object-oriented obfuscation. I get it, but in general I don't get the OO hate. It's all about the problem domain imo. I can't imagine building something like a graphics framework without some subtyping. Unfortunately, people often use crap examples for OO. The worst is probably employee, where employee and contractor are subtypes of worker, or some other chicanery like that. Of course in th…

I find inheritance works best when you model things that don't exist in reality, but only as software concepts, for example, an AbstractList, Buffer or GUI component.

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#224

Post by culi »

astrange wrote: post #113
bayarearefugee wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

One thing I always notice about this kind of post is that it never only has one accusation of oppressing a demographic group. There's always three of them at once. Makes it feel lightweight I think.

Notch's problematic behavior and views are well-known in the community and both Mojang and Microsoft have had to distance themselves from him. To the point that they had to remove all instances of "notch" in the codebase

Here's some examples, particularly of his antisemitism to better illustrate the issues

https://xcancel.com/jacqui_Val/status/1111080126345826305

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#225

Post by mayoff »

rcruzeiro wrote: post #181
devjab wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the OO hatred comes from how academia and certain enterprise organisations for our industry picked it up and taught it like a religion. Molding an entire generation og developers who wrote some really horrible code because they were taught that abstractions were, always, correct. It obviously weren't so outside those institutions, the world slowly realized that abstractions were in many ways worse for cycloma…

> I think the OO hatred comes from how academia and certain enterprise organisations for our industry picked it up and taught it like a religion. This, this, this. So much this. Back when I was in uni, Sun had donated basically an entire lab of those computers terminals that you used to sign in to with a smart card (I forgot the name). In exchange, the uni agreed to teach all classes related to programming in Java, a…

Probably the Sun Ray computer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ray

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#226

Post by jjmarr »

mywittyname wrote: post #157
beachy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First time I have heard of object-oriented obfuscation. I get it, but in general I don't get the OO hate. It's all about the problem domain imo. I can't imagine building something like a graphics framework without some subtyping. Unfortunately, people often use crap examples for OO. The worst is probably employee, where employee and contractor are subtypes of worker, or some other chicanery like that. Of course in th…

For me, it's the fact that the mess of DAOs and Factories that constituted "enterprise" Java in the 00s was a special kind of hellscape that was actively encouraged by the design of the language. Most code bases don't need dynamically loaded objects designed with interfaces that can be swapped out. In fact, that functionality is nearly never useful. But that's how most people wrote Java code. It was terrible and taug…

It's very useful in C++, funnily enough. This is because I can have a non-templated interface base class, then a templated impl class.

Then my templated impl header can be very heavy without killing my build times since only the interface base class is #included.

Not sure if this is as common in Java.

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#227

Post by ZeWaka »

undeveloper wrote: post #209
ZeWaka wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, since 2019 Mojang has been providing the mappings instead of everyone having to use community-created ones.

Very few people use mojang mappings -- the two big modloaders, forge and fabric (and their derivatives) have their own mappings respectively, due to the restrictions of the mojang mappings. It's possible to use the mojang mappings, but much less common.

Ah, I was aware of the different Fabric (Yarn) mappings and internal names (due to the few mods like architectury) but I think Forge switched over to Mojang's?

> As of 1.16.5 [(2021)], Forge will be using Mojang’s Official Mappings, or MojMaps, for the forseeable future

Pretty sure this applies to NeoForge as well: https://neoforged.net/personal/sciwhiz12/what-are-mappings/

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#228

Post by taneq »

stirfish wrote: post #216
taneq wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You gotta admit, though, that a language which strongarms you into writing classes with hidden state and then extending and composing them endlessly is kinda pushing you in that direction. It’s certainly possible to write good code in Java but it does still lend itself to abuse by the kind of person that treated Design Patterns as a Bible.

>kind of person that treated Design Patterns as a Bible I have a vague idea of what the Bible says, but I have my favorite parts that I sometimes get loud about. Specifically, please think really hard before making a Singleton, and then don't do it.

OK yeah that's a pretty good general principle. You think you only need one of these? Are you absolutely certain? You SURE? Wrong, you now need two. Or three.

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#229

Post by nurettin »

mmis1000 wrote: post #80
nurettin wrote: post #62

Maybe they should open source the loader instead of offering a solution to already solved problems so people don't have to resort to using third party loaders for on-prem gaming.

The game is still a licensed game though. You technically must pay it and go though proper verification to start the game. (Although it's a 100% public secret that how to load it as you want, and basically every single mod dev kit does that for local dev) I guess Microsoft won't want to deal with the license issue of publishing the loader part.

I doubt they care about this or that license. They just want people to upgrade.

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#230

Post by locknitpicker »

mywittyname wrote: post #157
beachy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First time I have heard of object-oriented obfuscation. I get it, but in general I don't get the OO hate. It's all about the problem domain imo. I can't imagine building something like a graphics framework without some subtyping. Unfortunately, people often use crap examples for OO. The worst is probably employee, where employee and contractor are subtypes of worker, or some other chicanery like that. Of course in th…

For me, it's the fact that the mess of DAOs and Factories that constituted "enterprise" Java in the 00s was a special kind of hellscape that was actively encouraged by the design of the language. Most code bases don't need dynamically loaded objects designed with interfaces that can be swapped out. In fact, that functionality is nearly never useful. But that's how most people wrote Java code. It was terrible and taug…

> Most code bases don't need dynamically loaded objects designed with interfaces that can be swapped out. In fact, that functionality is nearly never useful. But that's how most people wrote Java code.

Perhaps I'm not following, but dynamically loaded objects are the core feature of shared libraries. Among it's purposes, it allows code to be reused and even updated without having to recompile the project. That's pretty useful.

Interfaces are also very important. They allow your components to be testable and mockable. You cannot have quality software without these basic testing techniques. Also, interfaces are extremely important to allow your components to be easily replaced even at runtime.

Perhaps you haven't had the opportunity to experience the advantages of using these techniques, or were you mindful of when you benefited from them. We tend to remember the bad parts and assume the good parts are a given. But personal tastes don't refute the value and usefulness of features you never learned to appreciate.

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