Learn to Program with Minecraft: Transform Your World with the Power of Python

Minecraft is a hit with the kids and when you combine it with the elegance and simplicity of Python, it presents an excellent way for introducing programming to kids.

One of the first things that typically hits you when you want to prepare a package to teach the kids is to ensure that all the software is in place and organized into appropriate folders, so that the setup is not just minimal but also is intuitive enough for you to explain to the kids and for the kids to follow. This book takes extra steps on that front by making sure that in the first chapter itself : Setting Up for your Adventure, you have all the detailed steps to setting up the environment either for your PC, Mac or even Raspberry Pi. The instructions along with the ZIP files provided by the author worked well. Just ensure that you do not assume that just because you have some version of say Java, it should be fine. Take my advice and install the specific versions that the author has instructed and it works well.

The book then progresses well by explaining first about Python constructs and then applying them to do a little task in Minecraft. This approach ends up as being a refresher or learning material not just for Python but then also for the different objects and tasks that you can do inside of Minecraft.

Most aspects of Python are covered and some of these include:

- Variables
- Expressions and Operators
- String Manipulation
- Conditional Statements
- Loops
- Functions
- Lists
- File Operations
- Object Oriented Concepts

The above Python concepts are mapped beautifully to fun things that you can do inside Minecraft. These include teleporting the players, sending chat messages, Determining where you are standing in the game, Building structures via functions, Managing a list of items and so on.

I actually tested out various parts of this book with my two sons, aged 12 and 9, and they enjoyed various aspects of it. Especially the part where you could create complex structures via loops and the teleporting stuff.

If you are looking for a good and gentle introduction to Python and how you can program bits of Minecraft, this is a great reference to get going.

Installation walkthrough for Windows is outdated and doesn't work. Even as an expert programmer, it took me forever to install and setup the environment on windows. If you have limited computer experience, forget it! I'm disappointed.

I really wanted to have a good experience with Learn to Program With Minecraft. Unfortunately I didn't. The problems started trying to follow the instructions in chapter 1. I'm on a Mac, and while there are instructions for installing Python and configuring it for Mac OS X, they didn't work for me, despite trying on more than one machine. I always ended up with permissions errors, which meant I couldn't proceed further. I went to the website and read the addendums there, but those didn't help with my issue either.

This may be a great manual for use with the Windows operating system, but that's not what I'm on. After spending many fruitless hours trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, I gave up.

Purchased for my niece who is absolutely obsessed with Minecraft and envisions a future in which her household is full of uni-task robots (her dad is a robotics engineer). Thought it would be perfect for her to learn how to program so she could teach a robot how to perform whatever task she asks of it, and Python seems to be the new language of choice over Java with Computer Science degrees these days. In addition to being fun and educational, there is the added self-esteem benefit of having God-like powers in your own little world, as an Indoor Kid without many social skills... and since Minecraft seems to be the hip thing to do with kids these days, she's now got a one-up on anybody else in her circle, making her 'cool.'

Apparently this does not match current version of the game.

This was purchased as a gift for a child that is interested in learning code and who loves Minecraft. A parent is helping but it's easy enough for a 9 year old to follow.

The material is somewhat outdated, but very easy to understand and well organized.

This book is excellent to learn programming. Especially if you are kid that grew up playing Minecraft. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has played Minecraft and wants to learn to program. The main reason I like this book is because the chapters enable the developer to show off some really cool effects in the Minecraft world. So if you know Minecraft this book will make it very easy and entertaining to learn software development.

My son and I are having so much fun with this book! It's clear, concise, and easy to follow. He is excited to finish each chapter. Love watching him discover the magic of coding!

Got this for my son who saw it in a library. It has really motivated him to learn programing. He finds the book clear and easy to learn from.