Scripting API now in public beta (opens in new tab)

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

Hasn't this been possible for ages? Like 6 years ago I tried writing a basic Minecraft mod before I knew programming.

I don't understand what drives parents to want their kids to become code monkeys. I would rather my kids be financially savvy and have business skills. It sure doesn't hurt to know how to code, but getting them to program in Python from age 10 does not make them entrepreneurs or creators of business opportunities, it just makes them the labor workers of tomorrow.

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.

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. These enabled a lot of complex mods, and required relatively little knowledge about the messy details of the engines, however it was still relatively involved. First you had to setup the various base mods to get it to work, then you needed to compile your mods, restart the game server for most changes etc.

> The feedback loop is phenomenal and is something you simply do not get with other forms of learning.

Coming off of a BA in the Humanities and studying programming for economic necessity (i.e. getting skills that would help me get a job), this is what hooked me. It felt refreshing to enter a world where my creation worked or didn’t (runtime bugs aside) and I knew it right away.

This isn’t to degrade my Humanities studies. I’ve gotten a lot of value out of them, too.

Funny to see someone linking to one of my tutorials :) I'd completely forgotten I wrote all of those!

Blast from the past. I have a similar story; Eventscripts was how I learned python! was a lot of fun playing with code that you could see take action in game.

I feel the same way. I am so excited about this. I hope it is not too late though. Seems as though a lot of the popular around Minecraft has faded a bit.

The Java edition is the only one that supports mods. Development is parallel between it and the bedrock edition. The windows 10, android, iOS, Xbox one, PS4 and switch versions all use the bedrock edition.

I would recommend starting with a premade mod pack and a YouTube series that's currently using it. Direwolf20 authors his own packs and creates videos using those packs. The twitch client allows you to install various modpacks for Minecraft, including Direwolf20's

The Java version is the most moddable and featureful among the versions. The console/mobile/Win10 versions are collectively called Bedrock Edition. The Bedrock versions allow for (limited) crossplay between one another. The Java and Bedrock versions are incompatible. Bedrock versions have had essentially no moddability, though this announcement seems to be hinting that official Bedrock modding support may be in the works.

In short, Windows 10 Edition has not replaced the Java Edition, and IMO the Java version on PC remains the best way to play, especially if modding or server communities are desired.

Java is the original and I don't think it's fair to say that is has been "replaced" yet. Mods basically only exist for this one.

The Windows 10 one (which as here announced just got scripting beta), the XBox one and Android/iOS versions are all based on the same code base and labeled "Bedrock Edition". There's a bunch of other variants for other consoles etc, but less relevant. The Raspberry Pi one also had a (I think Python?) scripting interface, not sure if they still maintain it.

As other commenters have stated, java is best for modability both because of it's extensive community support and inertia (already written mods are on java).

However, (this may not be true any more, but I think it is) you get a free version of the win10 store version of minecraft with a java edition purchase. So just buy the java version, and you get both (and the prices are pretty close last I checked)

Check out this topic: https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/164341/how-exactl...

Look into Minecraft Forge.

Not sure how relevant all of this is now but we got it up and running on an older iMac pretty easily.

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

Probably won't be long before a minecraft babel plugin exists.

Yeah sure I saw him with Zelda in this game

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

They have in-game error messages and log files, or you can attach Visual Studio's debugger.

https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Bedrock_Beta_Script_Document...

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

Why not make DevOps part of the fun with setting up their own environment?

In all seriousness, while I'm an adult, when I started learning to code I got a major sense of accomplishment from getting my Ubuntu virtual environment setup.

> should put a fresh breath of life into Minecraft for sure

If you mean "new options from a different group", then yes.

If you mean "Minecraft has gotten stale and this will pep it up", then no. Minecraft has a very health and active modding community that has really been exploring new directions lately, and the non-modded Minecraft has been continuing to push new options and directions for some time.

> Is this Microsoft making an attempt to make the Java edition obsolete?

I expect they don't have to "attempt" so much as just let it decay because they'll have a lot more non-Java resources. As much as I've trashed MS in the past and as much as I thought the Minecraft buyout would be bad for Minecraft, MS has really been a decently-behaved corp citizen in software of late and developments like this mean that while they might under-support the Java Edition, they'll continue to support Minecraft in some form as we've come to expect.