[xahrepap]

"There are a few out there, but quite frankly they all reeked of Java and were limited by the nature of decompiling as a workaround to Minecrafts lack of an API."

What does Java smell like?

Seriously though, is it really the language that's the problem here? Honestly, this guy is a JavaScript developer. If there ever was code that had potential to "reek" it would be JavaScript. However, it would be ignorant to discredit an entire language and toolset because of that. Don't judge every line of Java code out there because Minecraft, of all things, doesn't have any kind of public API or because it's closed source. Especially since Java has such a thriving Open Source community.

The article was however really interesting, and I'm glad the author wrote about his experiences. I've been playing around with Minecraft and thought it would be fun to write a clone of my own.

[maxogden]

Sorry about the tone, I definitely could have said that part more nicely. To me Java smells like too many abstract interfaces, lots of boilerplate and hard to use build tools. Java was the first language I learned so I may very well be scarred from the experience.

[thejosh]

Most people developing Java voxel games/voxel game engines/anything to do with the Minecraft community are brand new developers who don't know what they are doing.... yet (not this guy though, in general Minecraft).

However I love game servers like this as it brings new talent into programming, and gets younger people interested. I remember a couple of years ago when private servers were more popular with games like World of Warcraft, Maplestory and a lot of other games that brought more people into programming.

[srgpqt]

I too found the article to be interesting. The main takeaway for me was the importance of community support -- give people the tools and the means to build upon and improve your work and they will do just that. Opensource software has this feature baked in, as does Minecraft to some extent through decompiling the java bytecode.

I too am working on my own voxel game and this article reinforces my thoughts on providing a server-side scripting API.