Learn to Program with Minecraft

You’ve bested creepers, traveled deep into caves, and maybe even gone to The End and back—but have you ever transformed a sword into a magic wand? Built a palace in the blink of an eye? Designed your own color-changing disco dance floor?

In Learn to Program with Minecraft®, you’ll do all this and more with the power of Python, a free language used by millions of professional and first-time programmers!

Begin with some short, simple Python lessons and then use your new skills to modify Minecraft to produce instant and totally awesome results. Learn how to customize Minecraft to make mini-games, duplicate entire buildings, and turn boring blocks into gold.

You’ll also write programs that:
–Take you on an automated teleportation tour around your Minecraft world
–Build massive monuments, pyramids, forests, and more in a snap!
–Make secret passageways that open when you activate a hidden switch
–Create a spooky ghost town that vanishes and reappears elsewhere
–Show exactly where to dig for rare blocks
–Cast a spell so that a cascade of flowers (or dynamite if you’re daring!) follows your every move
–Make mischief with dastardly lava traps and watery curses that cause huge floods

Whether you’re a Minecraft megafan or a newbie, you’ll see Minecraft in a whole new light while learning the basics of programming. Sure, you could spend all day mining for precious resources or building your mansion by hand, but with the power of Python, those days are over!

Requires: Windows 7 or later; OS X 10.10 or later; or a Raspberry Pi. Uses Python 3Introduction
Chapter 1: Setting Up for Your Adventure
Chapter 2: Teleporting with Variables
Chapter 3: Building Quickly and Traveling Far with Math
Chapter 4: Chatting with Strings
Chapter 5: Figuring Out What's True and False with Booleans
Chapter 6: Making Mini-Games with if Statements
Chapter 7: Dance Parties and Flower Parades with while Loops
Chapter 8: Functions Give You Superpowers
Chapter 9: Hitting Things with Lists and Dictionaries
Chapter 10: Minecraft Magic with for Loops
Chapter 11: Saving and Loading Buildings with Files and Modules
Chapter 12: Getting Classy with Object-Oriented Programming
Afterword
Block ID Cheat Sheet"This book makes it easy for you and your middle and high school students to learn how to program in Python through very engaging Minecraft projects."
—EdSurge

" Not only would this book be great for motivated individuals, but teachers, tech coaches, librarians, and club leaders could use it as a basis for conducting their own classes and workshops."
—School Library ConnectionCraig Richardson is a software developer and Python educator. He has worked for the Raspberry Pi Foundation, taught high school computing classes, and led many workshops on Python programming with Minecraft.