Learn to Program with Minecraft Plugins: Create Flying Creepers and Flaming Cows in Java (The Pragmatic Programmers)

Before I get into this review, I want to make it clear that I am coming from a background in programming, I hold a degree and have over 2 years of Java experience.With Java being one of my favorite programming languages, and minecraft being one of my favorite games (Plus I already host my own bukkit server), I thought it would be fun to do some kind of modding for Minecraft. I have the skill, I just didn't know where to begin. This book, along with some tips on the internet, I was introduced to how to access the bukkit library and begin applying my java knowledge in an awesome way.I was able to go through this book grabbing the examples and rebuilding them into something more complex. For exampleThe "buildahouse" sample plugin. Right off the bat, looking at the method parameters, I seen there was "String[] args", this excited me, I know what this is and how to apply it. So i've made it so you can pass in the width and height for the house in game.Example >"buildahouse 5 5".There was also a sample where it shows you that you can spawn a cow and name it. I rewrote it to spawn any entity in the game and name it.in the end, you could be in game and type, "spname creeper Tom", or "spname villager Dave", or "spname pig Wilbur" ect.I've made it through the book over 1 weekend just copying the code over to my IDE and playing with it, using the chapter for reference. To me the book has helped me build the missing knowledge I needed to start developing plugins.Now, here is where I get to the meat of this review, off the bat, I can tell that this book was written for children, the way the author talks and tries to explain things, it just didn't feel right to me. This book is suppose to be written so that readers can have 0 programming experience and still learn. It could be because I already know what he is trying to teach, but I feel if I didn't know anything about programming that this book is not the best place to start, you'll get short, and childish examples for things such as variables, and methods, etc. I think it helps to come in with a good understanding of Objects, instances, methods, and data types.I might have missed it, but another thing is that this book doesn't teach you how to do plugin development with Netbeans or Eclipse, something that I highly recommend using for Java development. Author has a script "build.sh" that people use to compile and move the plugin. Author uses a Mac, so unless you are on Mac, or Linux, you will have to download some extra functionality to do commandline shell on Windows OS. Not a problem if you know how to do this work using an IDE. I think by the time a child or person finishes this book, they will be relying on some kind of build script. They will be using some kind of text-based editor and doing a lot of things the hard way. Another thing that may not be present in the book is how to add the bukkit library to your resources. I think it's setup in such a way that users are making their plugins in a directory setup during the first 1-2 chapters. This leaves little understanding of how the bukkit library is being used and referenced. Using an IDE, you are taught to add a reference to the bukkit library to your resource folder, which in turn allows use of the imports and functionality of the packages.With bukkit on the market again, and with both Java and Bukkit updating as-well-as depreciating certain things, I think Author should release a 3rd edition to this book and make it fit modern times. Netbeans is on Mac, so I would appreciate Author introducing readers to Netbeans and the process of creating projects, packages and etc. Teach them how to build and compile the jar file and how to move it to the plugins folder.Again, I can't interpret this book like others, I see it already knowing Java, so I think to myself, would this help me if I didn't know programming? Knowing what I know now about Java and the process of Plugin development, to a lot of things, my answer is no. To a few other things, it's hard to tell whether it would or not.Maybe it would be best when writing a book like this to just dedicate the first half of the book to learning Java with a console, and then the last half of the book applying knowledge and building plugins. Or maybe spend each lesson learning a concept with console output, and then end the chapter by applying knowledge learned.If anyone has this book, and had zero experience buying it, and now have a good understanding of Java concepts, and bukkit plugins, good job!In the end, I still enjoyed the book, I have no regrets buying it, and I'm proud to have it for reference. If a 3rd edition comes out, and deals with Bukkit, I will likely consider buying.My suggestions though:*If you are buying this book because you are just interested in learning programming, get a true Java programming book.*If you aren't really interested in programming, but would like to develop plugins, I suggest first building an understanding in Java programming, then buy this book when you understand things such as Classes, Methods, and Objects and Instances.*If you know the Java language, and would like to get a start on plugins, buy this book.

-Rapidly acquire and stack new skills for tangible and satisfying progress-Excellent resources in book and online-Plain language and explanations make this accessible to those of us who are big n00bs.My experience programming anything is pretty much limited to basic, "Hello World" messages gleaned from my playtime with a TI-99/4A, in the early 80's, as a child. My kid, however, is intense about learning anything and everything about programming/coding and, of course, Minecraft. He is eleven years old.I wanted to see if I could figure any of this out, as he is getting to a point where he is realizing that maybe his mom doesn't know everything. I thought this Learn to Program with Minecraft Plugins might be a neat way to reconnect with him and refresh his faith in my knowledge.Andy Hunt does a fantastic job of teaching what is basically a foreign language, starting from the basics, and building on each newly acquired skill so that kids and adults can see progress which makes the process of learning feel easier, faster, more fun, and pretty mindblowing (to an old dog like me).You learn, by doing. I learn better this way, as does my son (we have Asperger's). This book was a great match and definitely sparked my interest, rapidly and fairly easily taught me a whole pile of new skills, and ignited a hunger for more.This is a good match for older kids and adults with an interest in Minecraft.I'm off to see what else I can learn from this series and Andy Hunt,

This should be a textbook for an Introduction to Java course. Andy Hunt does a great job of presenting the big ideas of programming to beginners. It was a stroke of genius to approach such a huge topic using Minecraft, the wildly popular video game written in Java.Since Java is not the easiest language to learn, you're likely to get lots of error messages, most of which the book anticipates and gives hints on what to check. All the code is provided for download from the book's website. You can try to write it yourself using the code examples in the text, or you can also learn a lot just by sifting through the author's code.Each chapter presents one or more "plugins" designed to create something real in the Minecraft world, from simple text messages to the cows and creepers of the title. For anybody who has tried to survive a night in Minecraft, the "Build A House" plugin is worth its weight in gold ore. The "Sky" plugin (which shoots every entity but you into the sky) was popular with young Minecrafters I showed it to.I'm not a Java guy (I prefer Python) so I ran into lots of problems getting the Java to work, but Andy provides his email address and is very helpful to us noobs.

This is THE BEST way for kids, or those who are simply young at heart, to learn how to program. As a professional software engineer I have tried for years to get my son interested in learning to program, but whenever I try to teach him he gets completely frustrated at how dry and boring it is to learn the fundamentals of programming and gives up. I recently bought this book for him and now he eagerly cracks open this book every single day as he excitedly learns how to program Java. Kudos to you, Andy Hunt, for doing what I have been unable to do for years, which is to get my son truly excited about learning to program.This is a well-written book that holds your hand every step of the way as you learn how to set up all aspects of your development environment and plunges you right into writing honest-to-goodness Java code in a way that seems much more like fun than like work. If I could give this book 6 out of 5 stars I would!

What a great idea! My sons are totally Minecraft obsessed, (as so many kids seem to be at the moment), and so the idea of using this interest to sneakily teach them a bit of programming seemed brilliant to me. This book utilises Bukkit libraries which are currently unavailable for use, (happened about the same time as I bought the book!), but by visiting their website at http://pragprog.com I was able to prove ownership of the book and download a digital copy of the new edition of the book which uses the CanaryMod libraries. The guys at PragProg were very helpful about this. The new edition of the book is here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learn-Program-Minecraft-Plugins-CanaryMod/dp/1941222943/ref=dp_ob_title_bk and seems little changed apart from bits of code concerning the libraries.My sons are completely LOVING this book so far! They are aged 8 and 10 and, although the 10 year old is grasping the concepts more quickly they are both having equal amounts of fun and are really thrilled when their coding attempts produce results. There is a little bit of setting up at the start of the book - installing text editors and various other bits of software and, after attempting to do this on one computer with an eager 10 year old bouncing away at my side, I decided that this administrative bit is much easier done in peace! After that, though, the book quickly heads off into coding...but manages to make it understandable and not too daunting, (no mean feat in my opinion!). Within a few half hour sessions they have created plugins that print out messages on-screen, make creeper noises and automatically build houses and it's great to see them starting to grow in confidence and say "I wonder if I can...". Not only is it great to see them having fun attempting to code, but it's been really lovely to spend time with them doing this - definite quality time together - and it's teaching me some new things too!I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to introduce their kids, (or indeed themselves), to Java programming and it's especially useful if they're already into Minecraft. I think that this book tackles the introduction of programming in a really nice way as it gets you busy doing things right from the start and introduces new concepts gradually as you go along so it never feels all that daunting. Get it!! :)

I bought this so I could show my kids a little of what I do professionally, as I'm a Java developer. My kids *love* minecraft & love the whole mod scene around it, so with a little luck I'll get them doing some mods of their own. This book is pitched so that any kid of about 8ish onwards, with a bit of motivation, can set up a simple development environment & step through the various examples, & get enough of an idea about what they're doing that they'll be able to make up some mod ideas of their own.

This is an excellent way to teach children or anyone interested in minecraft to program java plugins. The book is extremely clear in its instructions and I love the general style of teaching. The problem, however, is that the book requires the download of software from 'Bukkit' which has been withdrawn at the moment as one of its developers are having a legal dispute about property rights with Mojang (developers of Minecraft). This has led to the software being unable to be downloaded possibly indefinitely.

Book is good BUT you need the newer version (v2) that uses CanaryMod rather than CraftBukkit as the latter is no longer available!

The Program that it requires is no longer available and not likely to be in the near future