<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>Hi Ben,</div><div><br></div><div> have you seen Bert's work?</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://croquetweak.blogspot.com/2013/02/smalltalk-bindings-for-minecraft-pi.html?m=1">http://croquetweak.blogspot.com/2013/02/smalltalk-bindings-for-minecraft-pi.html?m=1</a></div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://croquetweak.blogspot.com/2013_02_01_archive.html?m=1">http://croquetweak.blogspot.com/2013_02_01_archive.html?m=1</a></div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://ss3.gemstone.com/ss/minecraft.html">http://ss3.gemstone.com/ss/minecraft.html</a><br><br><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">_,,,^..^,,,_ (phone)</span></div></div><div><br>On Dec 7, 2016, at 12:40 AM, Ben Coman <<a href="mailto:btc@openinworld.com">btc@openinworld.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><span>Minecraft is immensely popular. For teaching programming (to kids)</span><br><span>via Minecraft, the first option is Java, but that might be a bit heavy</span><br><span>for a pre-teen. A few lighter options are Lua via Computercraft [1]</span><br><span>and Javascript via Scriptcraft [2].</span><br><span></span><br><span>I've tried Computercraft and its quite interesting the way it</span><br><span>simulates real-life computers and drones, but the drone works slowly</span><br><span>so my kids end up doing things faster themselves.</span><br><span></span><br><span>I am in the initial stages of trying Scriptcraft (with Spigot server)</span><br><span>and making walls, buildings etc is fast, so hopefully my kids will see</span><br><span>value in using these superpowers.</span><br><span></span><br><span>But then I wondered whether it might be possible for SqueakJS and</span><br><span>PharoJS to interface with Minecraft via the Javascript engine. I was</span><br><span>interested to discover that the JVM comes with a Javascript engine</span><br><span>built in [3], "Rhino" [4] for JVM7 and faster "Nashorn" for JVM8 [5].</span><br><span></span><br><span>So I thought I would just seed the idea in the community to see if</span><br><span>anyone might be interested to pursue this. It really would be</span><br><span>fantastic to use our environment to make mods for Minecraft. (The</span><br><span>actual plan for world domination is to build some assets and</span><br><span>experience with minecraft, and then migrate to a pure Smalltalk 3D</span><br><span>client and server with GPU backends when that becomes available</span><br><span>-gnomes)</span><br><span></span><br><span>Or maybe it would be better to use JNIPort[6] or JavaConnect[7] or</span><br><span>something else.</span><br><span></span><br><span>cheers -ben</span><br><span></span><br><span>[1] <a href="http://www.computercraft.info/2016/04/01/computercraft-and-computercraftedu-1-79/">http://www.computercraft.info/2016/04/01/computercraft-and-computercraftedu-1-79/</a></span><br><span>[2] <a href="http://scriptcraftjs.org/">http://scriptcraftjs.org/</a></span><br><span>[3] <a href="https://github.com/walterhiggins/ScriptCraft/blob/master/docs/Using-Java-APIs-In-Javascript.md">https://github.com/walterhiggins/ScriptCraft/blob/master/docs/Using-Java-APIs-In-Javascript.md</a></span><br><span>[4] <a href="https://jaxenter.com/scriptcraft-hacking-minecraft-for-kids-105467.html">https://jaxenter.com/scriptcraft-hacking-minecraft-for-kids-105467.html</a></span><br><span>[5] <a href="https://www.infoq.com/articles/nashorn">https://www.infoq.com/articles/nashorn</a></span><br><span>[6] <a href="http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~JNIPort/JNIPort/">http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~JNIPort/JNIPort/</a></span><br><span>[7] <a href="http://www.squeaksource.com/JavaConnect">http://www.squeaksource.com/JavaConnect</a></span><br><span></span><br></div></blockquote></body></html>