[Birch-san]

Even without mods, Minecraft supports programming mechanisms (albeit not robots). redstone blocks can be used like logic gates, to construct traps, play music, open doors or build factories. People have implemented ALUs in redstone.

[vintermann]

Not just ALUs, but full blown processors with things like branch prediction. The last that got a good deal of attention was Sammyuri's "Chungus 2", from December last year.

It runs at 1 Hz though, about 1000 times slower than an Atari 2600.

[kamray23]

1 Hz is unironically an amazing achievement in minecraft. 20 Hz is the theoretical maximum without abusing bugs, and higher values are technically possible through 0-tick pulsing but most likely so utterly devastating to design that you'd have to be the worst kind of masochist to start trying.

[paavohtl]

Redstone is absolutely miserable to use. Even the simple task of moving signal around is a chore. Even though it can be used to do anything with the magic of NOR gates and Turing completeness, it is an outright hostile environment for learning about programming, logic and electronics.

[laurowyn]

Somewhat agree, however I think it's because building redstone actually requires some materials science type knowledge. i.e. how different materials and physical structures affect the redstone signal.

Redstone blocks vs redstone torches, and their relative strengths/purposes. Torches on sides of normal blocks with signals entering the side of the block. Using normal blocks to prevent redstone signals from connecting (particularly when going up or down stepped inclines). Space requirements to allow a signal to drive a block and not just terminate the signal next to a block.

These are all game analogues of laying out P and N state semiconductors, or conducting signals from one area of a chip to another and maintaining their signal quality, when designing ICs. Granted, these processes are hugely automated by tooling, but someone has to know, learn and understand how the materials science works in order to develop those tools.

This is why I'm surprised I've not yet seen a VHDL/Verilog compiler for minecraft redstone. Converting a gate array and netlist into a minecraft world feels like a relatively simple challenge for anyone with the knowledge, but I guess it's too niche of a project? Or I'm just not looking hard enough for it.

[nybble41]

> This is why I'm surprised I've not yet seen a VHDL/Verilog compiler for minecraft redstone.

https://github.com/itsFrank/MinecraftHDL

https://devpost.com/software/mcverilog

[Karsteski]

> it is an outright hostile environment for learning about programming, logic and electronics.

Calm down, it's just a building game where it happens that you can learn quite a bit about logic. I'd trying to get my 5 y.o. niece into it, since I find it to be a much better game for children compared to those pointless freemium mobile games.

Minecraft is fantastic for how simple it looks on the surface.

[paavohtl]

I do not disagree with that at all! I played Minecraft for the first time before it even had multiplayer, and I'm currently running a survival server for my friends. I think it's a great game for people of all ages, I just don't think it's any good as a "programming" game.

I guess my bias is that I played Garry's Mod with the Wiremod addon before Minecraft was even a thing, and it personally taught me a lot more about programming and logic than Minecraft ever could.