[jacquesm]

> I get that Minecraft is fun, but wouldn't it have been more practical, in the long run, to have built something equally cool in a real CAD/HDL/etc. software?

I find it all the more impressive because he used an environment that was not meant to be used like this.

That's like running the marathon with a handicap and still winning.

And if he can do it in minecraft I think that he'll take like a fish to water once he gets his hands on other, more powerful tools. That's mostly a matter of access, 16 year olds are more likely to have minecraft on the machines they have access to than CAD/HDL software and the hardware to go with it.

[joe42]

I absolutely agree that the hackish (you know what I mean) aspect of this feat makes it impressive, but I'd really like to see him work without the handicap.

Given his/her choice of tools, most people would probably be more expressive with Photoshop/GIMP than MS Paint, or AutoCAD/Blender/Poser/HDL/etc./etc. than Minecraft.

Programmers debate the expressivity of programming languages all the time. We're impressed when some genius kid re-implements Doom in TI-BASIC, but at the same time, I want to see that genius applied with the full leverage of the most expressive tools available.

Minecraft doesn't quite pass the Arc challenge. :)