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My son (age 11) wants to be a game programmer because of his love for Minecraft. He talks about Notch as his hero. I've setup a Minecraft server running on a h

by milesf 14y ago

My son (age 11) wants to be a game programmer because of his love for Minecraft. He talks about Notch as his hero. I've setup a Minecraft server running on a headless box in my house. The server has a whitelist of about 20 names with my children's friends from school so they can play. It's running Craftbukkit/Spigot (http://www.spigotmc.org/ http://www.spigotmc.org/) and Purugin (https://github.com/enebo/Purugin https://github.com/enebo/Purugin) which allows me to help them write Minecraft plugins in Ruby. Minecraft has spread like wildfire at their little school in the country, and being able to have their very own server that they are able to program and invite their friends to play on has made them micro celebrities at their school. As a parent Minecraft is a way for me to engage with my kids on something we are all interested in. I am also teaching them programming on something they really care about. It's exciting to watch and be a part of, and this documentary will only fuel that growing passion to learn how to write code.

Syssiphus 14y ago
That is just wonderful :)
elisee 14y ago
Hope you don't mind the plug, but I've been working on a Minecraft-inspired real-time cooperative game-making platform geared towards gamers (both young and older) and I think you might find it to be a great place to have fun with your kid, learning programming (Lua) and making actual games together, if you want to take it further. It's called CraftStudio and you can get it at: http://craftstud.io/ http://craftstud.io/ It's still in alpha (I've been releasing updates every few weeks for a bit over a year) but it's already capable of some very cool things. Videos of some games & creations made with it: http://www.youtube.com/user/craftstudiodev/videos?flow=grid&view=1 http://www.youtube.com/user/craftstudiodev/videos?flow=grid&... Alternatively I know there are some great Minecraft mods like ComputerCraft (also Lua-based) which allow doing programmy stuff directly within Minecraft if you're so inclined.
- milesf 14y ago
  Thanks! I am always looking for ways to ween my kids off of consuming activities (eg. TV, most video games) and onto creating activities (playing Minecraft, programming, etc). I'll definitely take a look. Would a Linux version be possible? I can't afford Mac systems for my kids, but they will both be getting Ubuntu laptops under the tree this year. I want them to wrestle with Linux because using the OS naturally leads you to learn about Unix.
  - elisee 14y ago
    Yup, the Linux port is in the works and I hope to have it available early next year. CraftStudio is built in C# with XNA. I've been using MonoGame (https://github.com/mono/monogame https://github.com/mono/monogame - open source, multiplatform reimplementation of XNA) for the Mac build for a few months and already got most of it running on Linux, I just need to find the time to get it into a releasable state.
- rlx0x 14y ago
  The Turtles (inspired by the Logo[0] language I assume) in Computercraft[1] are really a lot of fun. Small 1x1x1 robots that fly around, dig, craft, place torches and all that fun stuff. Its using Lua as a scripting language with a very simple API[2]. I think its a great way to getting started with programming, you really have that immediate gratification when you see the turtle flying around and digging stuff up. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_programming_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_programming_language [1] http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/892282-145-computercraft-147-now-in-color/ http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/892282-145-computercraft... [2] http://computercraft.info/wiki/index.php?title=Turtle_%28API%29 http://computercraft.info/wiki/index.php?title=Turtle_%28API...
hospadam 14y ago
As a soon-to-be-father myself... this is the kind of parent I want to be! Kudos! Any chance you could do a full writeup of your setup? Good job!
- milesf 14y ago
  Absolutely. I'm going to start blogging about all this stuff in the new year. The site will be at http://milesforrest.com http://milesforrest.com. I think the RSS link should be working.

by milesf 14y ago

Syssiphus 14y ago

That is just wonderful :)

elisee 14y ago

Hope you don't mind the plug, but I've been working on a Minecraft-inspired real-time cooperative game-making platform geared towards gamers (both young and older) and I think you might find it to be a great place to have fun with your kid, learning programming (Lua) and making actual games together, if you want to take it further. It's called CraftStudio and you can get it at: http://craftstud.io/ http://craftstud.io/ It's still in alpha (I've been releasing updates every few weeks for a bit over a year) but it's already capable of some very cool things. Videos of some games & creations made with it: http://www.youtube.com/user/craftstudiodev/videos?flow=grid&view=1 http://www.youtube.com/user/craftstudiodev/videos?flow=grid&... Alternatively I know there are some great Minecraft mods like ComputerCraft (also Lua-based) which allow doing programmy stuff directly within Minecraft if you're so inclined.

milesf 14y ago
Thanks! I am always looking for ways to ween my kids off of consuming activities (eg. TV, most video games) and onto creating activities (playing Minecraft, programming, etc). I'll definitely take a look. Would a Linux version be possible? I can't afford Mac systems for my kids, but they will both be getting Ubuntu laptops under the tree this year. I want them to wrestle with Linux because using the OS naturally leads you to learn about Unix.
- elisee 14y ago
  Yup, the Linux port is in the works and I hope to have it available early next year. CraftStudio is built in C# with XNA. I've been using MonoGame (https://github.com/mono/monogame https://github.com/mono/monogame - open source, multiplatform reimplementation of XNA) for the Mac build for a few months and already got most of it running on Linux, I just need to find the time to get it into a releasable state.
rlx0x 14y ago
The Turtles (inspired by the Logo[0] language I assume) in Computercraft[1] are really a lot of fun. Small 1x1x1 robots that fly around, dig, craft, place torches and all that fun stuff. Its using Lua as a scripting language with a very simple API[2]. I think its a great way to getting started with programming, you really have that immediate gratification when you see the turtle flying around and digging stuff up. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_programming_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_programming_language [1] http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/892282-145-computercraft-147-now-in-color/ http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/892282-145-computercraft... [2] http://computercraft.info/wiki/index.php?title=Turtle_%28API%29 http://computercraft.info/wiki/index.php?title=Turtle_%28API...

hospadam 14y ago

As a soon-to-be-father myself... this is the kind of parent I want to be! Kudos! Any chance you could do a full writeup of your setup? Good job!

milesf 14y ago
Absolutely. I'm going to start blogging about all this stuff in the new year. The site will be at http://milesforrest.com http://milesforrest.com. I think the RSS link should be working.