Show HN: Teachcraft – Learn Python through Minecraft

Show HN: Teachcraft – Learn Python through Minecraft
teachcraft.net

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 (programming) education.

It has a C++ core based on the Irrlicht 3D engine, but many of the game mechanics are implemented in Lua. Modifications like the examples in Teachcraft can also be built in Lua. For example, this [3] is a mod to spread flowers and mushrooms around the map.

The Lua language isn't used much currently in the education environment, which is mostly focused around Scratch, Python and sometimes Javascript. Then again, seeing different languages and noticing their similarities can be educational in itself.

Finally, I've been wondering how hard it would be to port something like Minetest to Emscripten. Irrlicht seems to be compatible already [4]. The non-JIT version of Lua is compatible as well [5]. Obstacles in Minetest that I can identify would be the heavy use of the filesystem, the use of UDP sockets and memory sharing between threads.

Would anyone know more about how hard porting something like this would be?

[1] https://github.com/minetest

[2] http://www.minetest.net

[3] https://github.com/minetest/minetest_game/blob/master/mods/f...

[4] http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=51...

[5] https://github.com/vvanders/wasm_lua

The way how mcpi works is by creating a network bridge between the RaspberryJuice plugin and Python. Commands in Python are send to the Minecraft plugin over the wire and handled there (using the Bukkit API), with output send back to the Python client. This is safer in the sense that you don't have the full Python environment running on the server and that (in theory) you can use both Python 2 and 3 (Jython support for Python 3 is not there yet). The drawback is that you can only utilize commands that are manually implemented and that the full Bukkit API is not directly exposed.

At one point, I also had a plan to expand this into a tutorial series but didn't really follow up on this due to a lack of time. I'd really like to do this some day, though.

[1]: https://github.com/Macuyiko/minecraft-python and video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4JfwS5hNlw

"Step 1 - Install Minecraft"

I can't get Minecraft to work on my Windows laptop. Minecraft crashes after a few seconds with a Java error:

"Java (tm) Platform Binary SE has stopped working"

Tried searching for a cause and tried everything I could find. Perhaps someone here has some suggestions?

EDIT: Re downvotes: that will teach me to post a half finished piece while I went to check on actual Java error! Not complaining - my fault entirely for posting half-assed reply which sounded aggressive.

That depends. It can be, if your class sizes.

However, last two schools I worked with simply bought a lab-worth of Raspberry Pis, and used that limited version of Minecraft.