Hello.
Recently I've been to Barnes & Noble and I was surprised to find programming books about Minecraft.
I browsed through the three of them which were available and would like to offer my opinions and generally bring exposure to these books.
Learn to Program with Minecraft
Out of the three, I feel this was one made the best effort for readers to actually retain the content. It had lots of examples beautifully mixing Minecraft with programming concepts. It's aimed at beginners.
The downside to this book is that it's using Python through a Bukkit plugin. Python is a great language, but I so many installation steps will certainly discourage some people.
Absolute Beginner's Guide to Minecraft Mods Programming
This book takes a more traditional approach to teaching programming. There's a section on installing tools, then a section on java and finally a section on Minecraft modding through a series of examples.
Sams Teach Yourself Mod Development for Minecraft in 24 hours
This one focuses on client-side mod development using Forge and targets intermediate developers who already know some Java. This book may be useful for Bukkit plugin developers who might want to get into client-side modding. I don't recommend it.
Obviously, it's also possible to learn Java by itself through other resources (there are tons and ton of Java books!) and then get into modding. It's the existence of these books which make me happy because they testify how much the server scene has grown and matured.
Recently I've been to Barnes & Noble and I was surprised to find programming books about Minecraft.
I browsed through the three of them which were available and would like to offer my opinions and generally bring exposure to these books.
Learn to Program with Minecraft
Out of the three, I feel this was one made the best effort for readers to actually retain the content. It had lots of examples beautifully mixing Minecraft with programming concepts. It's aimed at beginners.
The downside to this book is that it's using Python through a Bukkit plugin. Python is a great language, but I so many installation steps will certainly discourage some people.
Absolute Beginner's Guide to Minecraft Mods Programming
This book takes a more traditional approach to teaching programming. There's a section on installing tools, then a section on java and finally a section on Minecraft modding through a series of examples.
Sams Teach Yourself Mod Development for Minecraft in 24 hours
This one focuses on client-side mod development using Forge and targets intermediate developers who already know some Java. This book may be useful for Bukkit plugin developers who might want to get into client-side modding. I don't recommend it.
Obviously, it's also possible to learn Java by itself through other resources (there are tons and ton of Java books!) and then get into modding. It's the existence of these books which make me happy because they testify how much the server scene has grown and matured.
