The amazing thing about this game is that I'm using it to teach my girls how to program with it. Its a great tool because it allows them to see the value in writing code by getting real results quickly.
The oldest one wanted to create pink wood to build herself a pink wood house. Why? Well duh, its pink (her words). We quickly dug the source code and had a pink wood block in a short time. She was so happy and learned about Java. A double win in my book.
Could you explain more about your setup? My own daughters love Minecraft and also want to learn to code...I'd be very interested in how you're accomplishing this.
I'm writing a short e-book on the subject. But the best way to do this is to go to the minecraft wiki and start reading. They have tutorials in there. Reddit also has some very good information and you can ask questions. You can always shoot me an email.
My 8 year old son wants to do the same. Have you found any resources that would be helpful for somebody with intermediate java skills (me) but no modding experience get up to speed with modding minecraft? Modding minecraft could be a great gateway for getting my son excited about programming.
oooh, have you seen pi version? Its purpose is for teaching children programming (its scriptable with python). It doesn't look like its quite ready, but here is the link to watch:
http://pi.minecraft.net/
I thought you were going to say you taught your children programming by creating algorithms visually through blocks. Otherwise they are pretending to be having fun.
The oldest one wanted to create pink wood to build herself a pink wood house. Why? Well duh, its pink (her words). We quickly dug the source code and had a pink wood block in a short time. She was so happy and learned about Java. A double win in my book.