angelalvarado / program-minecraft

Everything you need to create a development environment for "Learn to Program with Minecraft

Learn to Program with Minecraft - Docker Edition

So you've bought "Learn to Program with Minecraft" and need to set up your computer to run through the exercises. While the book gives detailed instructions to set everything up, this repo gives you what you need to run the Minecraft server and a Python development container to execute the exercises. Before proceeding, you'll need to install:

1. Java - Required to run Minecraft. http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html
2. Minecraft - To play the Game. https://minecraft.net/en-us/download/
3. MultiMC - Optional but recommened. https://multimc.org/
4. Docker - You'll use this to run the Minecraft Server and Python development container. https://www.docker.com/get-docker
5. Visual Studio Code - VS Code online runs within a container and it's ready to be connected to the minecraft server.

Getting started

Once you've installed the above clone this repo using git, or download this repo using the button above. If you download a ZIP, you'll want to extract it to a folder of your choice. Open a terminal (or command line) and change into the folder. Run docker-compose up to start the Minecraft Server as well as a container with Python installed. That's it! You're now able to start coding the exercises in the book.

Source Code Location

Throughout the book you'll create small snippets of code to execute. Any code you create will need to be placed in the vscode/src directory. VS Code online is running on localhost:8080 and this directory is accessible from it.

Executing Your Python Scripts

The book will tell you to write your code in IDLE and then hit F5 to run it. In this environment you'll do things differently. Write your code in the VS Code online and hit the play button to run it.

Restarting the Server

For any number of reasons you may need to restart the server and Python container. If the server is still running and your terminal is showing the console logs of the server, simply hit ctrl-c to stop the server. Then run docker-compose down to delete the old server instance, and then run docker-compose up to start a new instance. You'll need to be in the folder containing the docker-compose.yml file in this repository. This will not delete any of your server's data (see below on how to do that).

Minecraft Data

All data for the Minecraft server is stored in the data directory. To reset the server, stop the server (docker-compose down), then remove all the files and folders in the data folder. The Minecraft Server will recreate these files when it starts. Note that this will also delete any Worlds you've created!

Accessing the Minecraft Console

You might want to have access to the Minecraft Server's console to execute commands. You can run docker exec -it mc-pi-srv rcon-cli from a terminal to open the console. You can then issue server commands as you normally would on a Minecraft Server.

Increasing the Memory Available to Minecraft

Depending on your system and depending on what you're building, you might need to increase the memory of the Minecraft Server. Edit the docker-compose.yml file, changing the server's environment variable "MEMORY". Currently it is set to 5G.