Opinion on OpenComputers?

I've seen multiple talking about the new mod OpenComputers, and I would like to know everyone's opinion on the mod.

If you want to post a status that 'hates' on the mod, please don't make it inappropriate.

Well, if I were new to OpenComputers and CC, and I had to choose one, I would definitely choose OpenComputers.
There are like 5 suggestions a day I like in the CC forum, but the last suggestion accepted were colored turtles (which you don't need at all, I use turtle's to mine and not to play, and most CC Games have a fixed solution of 51x19, which turtle's don't support), and it seems OpenComputers opens much more opportunities. Also, I don't like this Low-Tier in ComputerCraft.
(I'm not a hater, I still like ComputerCraft much, but OpenComputers seems more attractive ^^)

The only reason that speaks against OpenComputers is that it uses lua 5.2 and setfenv doesn't work anymore (which is like inacceptable) (but maybe you can make Computers that use lua 5.1)

That is a good point; most suggestions are immediately denied.

ComputerCraft is low-tier, but probably as a way to introduce you to programming
Would you object to using them together?

OpenComputers seens pretty interesting to me. I like the idea of modularity and limits on the hardware memory wise and storage wise. Otherwise, I'm one of those "Not the most fond of Lua" people where I feel there could be better languages to use (though no where near as easy to use), so the fact that both mods use Lua somewhat turns me off from developing any applications for them myself. I'd say both are probably good at what they do (I'll be checking out OpenComputers tonight when I get off of work), but from a features standpoint OpenComputers does actually seem to be more up my alley.

This topic has the potential to be highly contentious. If it devolves into a flame war, it will get locked, so let's keep it clean.

It will be interesting to have a competing mod out there. In a couple of threads over on reddit, it was mentioned that dan200 was actually in the middle of a big chunk of work on ComputerCraft. He also mentioned reconsidering his decision to put off adding persistence. I'm hopeful that the presence of a competing mod will cause both mods to become better than either would have been alone. I'm looking forward to seeing the changes dan is working on!

I haven't looked into OpenComputers very deeply yet. I know it uses Lua 5.2, which I'm somewhat hoping the new changes to ComputerCraft will avoid moving to. I'm somewhat doubtful that programs written for ComputerCraft will be cross-compatible. If there are enough similarities, I'm sure it will be possible for someone to come up with a compatibility layer, of course. The modularity concept is an interesting one, though it appears as if they've gone the multiblock route, severely inhibiting computers' roles in space-restricted builds. I hope that ComputerCraft will continue to provide compact and powerful solutions.

That said, a word about OC and Ask a Pro: these are the ComputerCraft forums, so questions in Ask a Pro should be ComputerCraft-specific. We haven't encouraged general Lua questions, nor questions for other games using Lua. This holds for OpenComputers. We won't try to prevent questions being asked unless it becomes a problem, and we'll address that on a user by user basis.

I looked around and can't find it. Link please?

EDIT: found it.

Looks like a pain to install… CC FTW!

It has a .zip?

EDIT: Just now remembered it needs to be powered, but that's not that big of a deal

Post redacted.

Here's my thoughts.

• OpenComputers(OC) is open source. I like open source.
• OC looks like it's running the C implementation of Lua, hence having to install all those libraries, and Windows/Linux only. Winner here is ComputerCraft(CC) for picking LuaJ, simplifying installation.
• OC computers are really expensive and require more than one block or item (case, keyboard, screen, gpu, memory, power converter)
• OC computers also need power from somewhere

I find it interesting that OC was developed as a response to the closed sourceness of CC and that the author had submitted several bug reports in CC but had received no response. I'd have to agree that there seems to be a lack of forward momentum in ComputerCraft. And yes, the forums can be very unfriendly at times, with many suggestions of moving ComputerCraft forward being shot down and locked without any discussion.

There's a real lack of innovation in ComputerCraft and I feel that it's partly due to this idea that ComputerCraft is complete, and that anything else you could possibly want to do you can by writing the Lua yourself. The problem is that leads to a wasteland of APIs and OS where everyone has to reinvent the wheel in their program because the base system doesn't have it built in.

I hope OpenComputers causes innovation to occur in ComputerCraft and it's community.

http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/2201440-opencomputers/

I'd like to see the mods remain different enough that they'd both be included in the main modpacks out there. While I don't think many people care how much a CC computer costs, CC turtles are incredibly cheap for what they do and a more "balanced" replacement could be their downfall. CC's stuff is only low-tier in terms of resources required. OC's stuff costs more and gives you less, but seems to have about the same potential.

(Hands up if you only found out about CC because it was included in a modpack?)

Rather, I'd like to see OC perform some tasks CC can't, and CC perform some tasks OC can't. It'd potentially make for some much more interesting builds, too, given that the two different mods have the potential to communicate (over redstone at the very least).

What I would not like to see is the sort of power creep that starts to occur when mods start to "compete". Fortunately, I don't think that's going to happen here. Sure, some of the rejected suggestions for CC will likely make it into OC, but that's got a lot more to do with them being "suitable" for OC than it has to do with them being "great, original ideas". On that note, it's very seldom that I see a "suggestion" made on these boards that isn't 1) obviously a bad idea, 2) repeated all the way down the page of threads in the suggestions board already and 3) flagged as a "don't suggest this" point in the stickies. Usually all three of these apply.

On the subject of persistence, I've always rather liked that CC computers lose their state, even if I must admit that other than the technical ones I can see no good reasons for them to do so from a player's perspective. I feel it encourages better code (or at least, encourages people to think) - users need to work out how to make their systems handle random "power outages". I realise that most methods that actually get used are waaaay more inefficient than they should be (eg this one, which I quite liked, has a crazy amount of overhead even compared to… well… any other I've seen), but still. It's more than possible to code a moving turtle that can boot up from any location and get on with its work without any filesystem access at all, and quite satisfying to do so.

I'm trying to think of a downside to persistence, and I rather suspect the main one is that a bad enough server crash will probably foil it anyway (meaning that users may STILL need to make their code deal with random "power outages", but those functions will just get called a lot less often). That and the "OS X users can only use the mod by joining a server that runs it" thing his implementation enforces, but I've never understood OS X users anyway. So yay for persistence, I guess.

Edit:

distantcam, on 19 December 2013 - 06:35 PM said:

There's a real lack of innovation in ComputerCraft and I feel that it's partly due to this idea that ComputerCraft is complete, and that anything else you could possibly want to do you can by writing the Lua yourself. The problem is that leads to a wasteland of APIs and OS where everyone has to reinvent the wheel in their program because the base system doesn't have it built in.

The problem with the mod handing you all those systems on a plate is that then there's nothing left for the players to do.

Bomb Bloke, on 19 December 2013 - 06:46 PM said:

The problem with the mod handing you all those systems on a plate is that then there's nothing left for the players to do.

I don't agree. There will always be things for the player to do. That's what Minecraft is all about.

There's another issue with such pre-made APIs - they don't suit everybody. There was a recent discussion on providing a standardised set for "things you can already do in Lua". I (kinda jokingly) rubbished it, but the truth is a new set of APIs would be accepted if they made it into the official ComputerCraft zip. That said, though, I still don't like the idea - the more the mod does "for you", the less the novice programmer is actually going to learn from it.

My impression is that CC is largely intended to let you do what you want while making sure you understand how you're doing it, and additional "convenience" APIs take it in the opposite direction - assuming I'm right about all that, you can see why related "suggestions" are shot down time and time again. Maybe OC will be different in that regard. I don't know, but I really hope it's not. If anything, it sounds like configuring a system for OC will be even more complex then in CC.

As for the repeated operating systems? I've not ever seen the need to use an alternate OS on a CC system - the base shell does all I want. Even assuming I'm easily pleased, I don't think there's anything anyone could add to it that'd stop the flow of new "OSes" being written. And as long as people find them fun I don't see anything wrong with that.

Bomb Bloke, on 19 December 2013 - 07:40 PM said:

As for the repeated operating systems? I've not ever seen the need to use an alternate OS on a CC system - the base shell does all I want. Even assuming I'm easily pleased, I don't think there's anything anyone could add to it that'd stop the flow of new "OSes" being written. And as long as people find them fun I don't see anything wrong with that.

Sorry to meander a bit off topic, but I just wanted to give some input on this interesting subject. I used to think that CC OS's were really just for beginners who could use the extra UI assistance in the creation of their programs and whatnot, however my opinion took a b-line as soon as I saw Kingdaro's CraftBang, which made me realized how useful CC OS's could be if they implemented the right features, ex: Fullscreen only, Non-intrusive, Simplistic, etc.

Anyways, on topic now, I'm really excited to see this mod. I'm not particularly interested in using it, but purely the fact that it provides some tough competition to the CC Devs (dat Unicode support) has me eagerly awaiting how this friendly rivalry will play out. No doubt, the benefits will be bidirectional.

Modern frameworks like Java and .NET do a heck of a lot for the developer, and yet novices and professionals still manage to find things to do and to learn from those frameworks.

I'll agree that a lot of suggestions are bad, and the really bad ones are worth shutting down. But sometimes a discussion can arise that will turn it into a good suggestion. Or like this thread where some interesting ideas have been raised.

Enhancing the base OS won't stop the flow of OS, but it also won't hinder it either. If someone wants to write their own OS they can. It's the same with real computers, people are free to write their own kernel from scratch, or use an existing kernel and build their own OS around that, etc etc.

A good example of an unloved API that is impossible to implement in Lua would be the HTTP API. There are a lot of websites with APIs nowadays and most of them are inaccessible to ComputerCraft because they require OAuth authentication, which is impossible to do with the current HTTP API.

Back on topic, I hope OC helps push CC forward, and vice versa.

distantcam, on 19 December 2013 - 08:49 PM said:

A good example of an unloved API that is impossible to implement in Lua would be the HTTP API. There are a lot of websites with APIs nowadays and most of them are inaccessible to ComputerCraft because they require OAuth authentication, which is impossible to do with the current HTTP API.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES! I have wanted support for being able to open browser windows in the real internet browser (standard Minecraft link prompt) and support for headers, etc in requests to websites to make various things, such as a GitHub GUI (as well as a modified version of Git in the terminal) in awsmazingOS, and more. I would also like some support for parsing JSON returned by websites, because right now I have been writing my own handlers.

I think it's pretty interesting. I don't often use other mods though, so I don't enjoy the power thing.

It's disablable in the options iirc.

Open computers mostly looks good.
I don't like the power requirement though.
And it crashes my game when I place it's blocks.

Lyqyd, on 19 December 2013 - 10:59 AM said:

That said, a word about OC and Ask a Pro: these are the ComputerCraft forums, so questions in Ask a Pro should be ComputerCraft-specific.

Should this ever become an actual problem let me know and I'll gladly add a note in my posts.

gollark8, on 20 December 2013 - 04:28 PM said:

And it crashes my game when I place it's blocks.

Then please report it with your crash log on Github or in the Minecraft Forums thread and I'll look into it.

gollark8, on 20 December 2013 - 04:28 PM said:

Open computers mostly looks good.
I don't like the power requirement though.
And it crashes my game when I place it's blocks.

Then you should probably check your FML installation, and your OC installation.

EDIT: Damn ninja :ph34r:/>

Lol hey Sangar, nice to see you on.

Yeah, I have a clean Forge 1.6.4, OC, and the latest BuildCraft.
I crash occasionally with recipies in NEI, but that's it.

Sangar, on 20 December 2013 - 04:51 PM said:

Lyqyd, on 19 December 2013 - 10:59 AM said:

That said, a word about OC and Ask a Pro: these are the ComputerCraft forums, so questions in Ask a Pro should be ComputerCraft-specific.

Should this ever become an actual problem let me know and I'll gladly add a note in my posts.

I appreciate the offer and hope it never becomes a problem, especially not a drastic enough one to ask for a specific note! We're pretty welcoming here, so it would take quite a few people persistently causing problems before I feel this would be a necessary step.

The project looks good, and while it's not really up my alley personally, I'm excited to see a little friendly competition pushing both mods to be better than they would be otherwise! :)/>

Bomb Bloke, on 19 December 2013 - 06:46 PM said:

The problem with the mod handing you all those systems on a plate is that then there's nothing left for the players to do.

I don't agree too. Instead, like if they were adding computers with controllable pixels, you had much more to do. You had to write a custom font system (isn't that hard, I think), you had to write render engines for this, you had to find a solution that the screen doesn't lag, etc. And if they would add a mouse.isOver or mouse_over event, you had to write code that updates your buttons etc (isn't that hard, too).

In the end, you have to code more, but the output becomes much better for the user.

awsmazinggenius, on 19 December 2013 - 09:28 PM said:

I would also like some support for parsing JSON returned by websites, because right now I have been writing my own handlers.

http://files.luaforge.net/releases/json/json/0.9.50
just a bit of fixing CClua - lua compatibility problems, and then you have your json translator. Got it working some time ago in gh-dl, you could use the functions there too, if you're tired of fixing issues :)/>

Er, looks like a bit of confusion there. I have nothing against adding APIs that implement functions that can't already be achieved in ComputerCraft as it is now (within reason - some ideas are bad regardless). We were talking about the somewhat frequent requests for APIs to be added to the official ComputerCraft package, that users can already write themselves - distantcam felt that some would be beneficial in that players wouldn't need to all "waste time" writing their own lower-level functions to do simple stuff (… something that happens to result in a lot of rather similar APIs being posted to these forums), whereas I felt that that very need is a good thing because it forces them to learn how things work at those lower levels.

It does strike me, though, that a large monitor with minimum text scale can indeed run a custom font, if you want it too. I assume that's already been done.

ardera, on 21 December 2013 - 02:56 AM said:

Bomb Bloke, on 19 December 2013 - 06:46 PM said:

The problem with the mod handing you all those systems on a plate is that then there's nothing left for the players to do.

I don't agree too. Instead, like if they were adding computers with controllable pixels, you had much more to do. You had to write a custom font system (isn't that hard, I think), you had to write render engines for this, you had to find a solution that the screen doesn't lag, etc. And if they would add a mouse.isOver or mouse_over event, you had to write code that updates your buttons etc (isn't that hard, too).

Thanks for that JSON parser - +1 for you :)/>. I thought of this before, thinking it would be great for tooltips and the like, but then thought to myself (without having great knowledge of Java, or even seeing either Minecraft's or ComputerCraft's source code) that the server probably has no way of knowing where the client's cursor is. (I could be wrong on all of this :)/>) Also, what if 2 players are accessing the same computer? And what is somebody has slow internet, so the stream of "mouse position" packets was slower to the server, making it confusing, with laggy tooltips/whatever? While it would be awesome, it probably isn't feasible.

Bomb Bloke, on 21 December 2013 - 04:01 AM said:

whereas I felt that that very need is a good thing because it forces them to learn how things work at those lower levels.

That's great in theory, but the practice is that beginners either ignore that part of the system saying "that feature will be added later" or they do a really poor implementation with global variables, etc etc that no one wants to use.

Bottom line, you can't force programmers to do anything. It's like herding cats.

To be honest, if I had to choose, I'd pick OpenComputers over ComputerCraft. I like the feeling of it being more "realistic" in a way because it has a RAM limit and it requires power. I like playing with a limit on things, rather than having everything. Just my personal preference.

I don't really like the point that forcing lower-level work is actually a good thing. From my experience in working with C/C++ and from "reinventing the wheel" multiple times during game and CC development, it's honestly a waste of time when I'm actually trying to get something done.

As an example, let's say you're a new player who recently found this mod, looking to create awesome automated contraptions using computers and turtles. Then you find that you have to learn an entire programming language, which includes but is not limited to: the difference between globals and locals, why globals are bad, the difference between dot and colon notation, how tables work and the many caveats that come with using them, how to read and write files, and so on.

Obviously to do anything you'll have to do some bit of learning, but the amount of "learning" that CC specifically promotes is pretty much the repetition of many processes that are trivial to do on their own, but build up in terms of time and effort spent in making the systems you want. It's redundant and you become annoyed more than you actually learn anything. Some examples being you need three lines of verbose code to read and write files, that 9 times out of 10, the read() function needs to be rewritten to implement a length limit among other things, the colors table doesn't have any backward references, and looping is almost always needed to find a specific connected peripheral. Some of these examples are more "valid" than others, but for getting things done in your minecraft world, reinventing the wheel shouldn't be encouraged.

And of course, there are people (many here reading this I'm sure) that actually do pick up mods like this to learn a bit of programming, and that's fine. For people who are actually curious and want to learn, they can look at the source code. People who look up how to create coroutine management systems are always pointed towards the parallel API, which is an almost perfect example of how to use coroutines. Forcing people to learn before letting them create their desired output discourages learning. It's curiosity that creates learning. As a (kind of bad) example, if a function like "fs.read(filename, mode)" were implemented, I would probably be more inclined to look behind and see what allows me to read files so easily, then continue to use this wonderful easy method. As opposed to using the method we have have now, I would learn how files are read, but I would just give up because it's annoying typing three lines of code every time.

In short, I personally believe in mods that don't "get in your way" and allow self-induced learning, rather than only giving the bare minimum and expecting the user to work low level for whatever they need. It may seem like I'm indirectly making suggestions in this post, but I know they probably won't be considered, and that's fine. CC is a nice mod, and until OpenComputers actually has less convoluted vomit-inducing recipes, CC is probably one of the best Lua development environments out there in my opinion. Even then, I feel as though OCS tries to be too much like a real computer, and goes against the policy of curiosity-induced learning I explained prior, but I suppose the only thing we can do is look toward the future and see how things turn out.

Yea, one of the things I love about CC is the simplicity of it. The recipes are very simple and easy to make. Compare that with many of the machine mods which require you to craft dozens of different items to make one block. Requiring power seems like a rather annoying and pointless addition, but that's my 'oversimplified' point of view.

oeed, on 22 December 2013 - 10:12 PM said:

Yea, one of the things I love about CC is the simplicity of it. The recipes are very simple and easy to make. Compare that with many of the machine mods which require you to craft dozens of different items to make one block. Requiring power seems like a rather annoying and pointless addition, but that's my 'oversimplified' point of view.

I agree completely. I'm fine with machines requiring power as long as it's reasonable and aligns well with my current state in-game (e.g. at the point I probably have a coal generator, I should have machines requiring monumental amounts of power). A long clusterf*** of recipes is completely unreasonable in any situation. It's just pointless effort.

It's not reasonable. The power that is drawn from the simple system I had was pulling from three stirling engines and still was not enough.

How much power did the system need? (Also does it use MJ or EU, or both?) I haven't downloaded OC yet.

I think it takes MJ, EU, and RF.

I don't know, but it's over 3 stirling engines.
I'll try HV solar right next to an MFSU later.

In my opinion making a computer a multiblock of more than 2 blocks is pretty lame. It would make more sense if they actually added several types of computer cases with different amount of slots for peripherals, so you would still need to make parts for it, but at least it would stay compact… Computercraft for most of users is pretty much a cheap mining solution which only require some iron and diamond pick(or even gem pick with project red), splitting a computer into 10 blocks won't suddenly make people start learning lua, that is not the way to go. I would still pick CC over OC, at least for now. Computers needing power to run ? Fine by me, but computers that require half of room is no-go. Also installation of OC is slightly more complicated.

While I quite like the idea of having a server room where the server pretty much IS the room, I can see that there are times when the ability to compact things down is important. Perhaps you could use "larger" computers to work machines which generate parts for "smaller" computers? Treat an attached machine block as multiple peripherals, to which you must send commands according to various different patterns in order to have it make the various different parts for the more "advanced" machines. You'd literally have to write a program in order to generate the next branch of the tech tree, so to speak.

Ah, now you've got me started with the silly suggestions. :D/>

Kingdaro, on 22 December 2013 - 09:27 PM said:

As a (kind of bad) example, if a function like "fs.read(filename, mode)" were implemented, I would probably be more inclined to look behind and see what allows me to read files so easily, then continue to use this wonderful easy method.

A recent burst of people asking how to twist the rednet API to send/receive on custom ports makes me think you'd be one of few. Most of 'em seem intent on tricking their computers into thinking they have different IDs rather then altering the rednet API or interfacing with the modems directly.

I assume they don't even realise that the latter two are options, and so never look into them - without the foreknowledge that there is a lower level, it's a bit of a "mental leap" for them to make.

CC is more of an educational mod with cheap easily obtained computers while OC is more for realistic survival with much more expensive computers that require power to operate.

If someone made a "competing" mod, they could've taken a LOT of hints from the 99% denied suggestions here. Instead, they took the same language, made it more complicated, clunkier in both installation and usage, theory and practice. Not impressed, truth be told.

robhol, on 29 December 2013 - 03:58 PM said:

If someone made a "competing" mod, they could've taken a LOT of hints from the 99% denied suggestions here. Instead, they took the same language, made it more complicated, clunkier in both installation and usage, theory and practice. Not impressed, truth be told.

Im curious to go check them out, because the two options I wanted when I looked into the CC config file was 'harder recipes' and 'increase power use'. I didn't find them, unless its in 1.6 maybe.

I'd argue that 9 out of 10 turtle users are usign them for automated resource gathering. In that respect, turtles are THE strongest option there is. They speed up game progression a lot, and for people who don't enjoy the game when it gets to pseudo creative mode ("end game") turtles just bring that point to the game faster.

Personally im looking into opencomputers. Id happily stick with CC, but why wouldn't the author let people config the mod to be harder? Even gregtech lets you make his mod easier, IMO opencomputers is the result of CC being less tolerant of other playstyles than… gregtech. Think about that for a minute.

robhol, on 29 December 2013 - 03:58 PM said:

If someone made a "competing" mod, they could've taken a LOT of hints from the 99% denied suggestions here. Instead, they took the same language, made it more complicated, clunkier in both installation and usage, theory and practice. Not impressed, truth be told.

Agreed, but many of the suggestions aren't great. There is a reason for their rejection, but yes, there are a few gems in there.

I think Computercraft is better for making cool programs to share with the world and have a lot of fun doing it.
OpenComputers is more for making a program for your survival world to control everything.
OpenComputers is specifically focused towards:
Make a lot of machines, work to get your computer, make a quick program, be able to control those machines.
Computercraft is focused on:
Have fun, be free, make cool programs, show them to the world.
I myself prefer Computercraft.

Bomb Bloke, on 24 December 2013 - 02:58 AM said:

I assume they don't even realise that the latter two are options, and so never look into them - without the foreknowledge that there is a lower level, it's a bit of a "mental leap" for them to make.

Hardly anyone seems to realise that rednet.send(4, "hello") from computer 6 is identical to modem.transmit(4, 6, "hello"). rednet.broadcast from computer 6: modem.transmit(65535, 6, "hello").

I do like rednet though, keeps things nice and simple, especially for the newcomer. I use the modem API now though.

I'm really enjoying this mod. It's very well polished, and in contrast to what some have said is not really competition for ComputerCraft but rather a good complement to it. I view ComputerCraft as a rather early game access to computers - there is no power requirement, and components are extremely cheap. ComputerCraft has been around longer, so of course it has more support from mods and OpenPeripherals gives it a lot of advantages in this.

This mod on the other hand is a more mid-game level due to power requirements and expense, and it has some advantages to boot (e.g. high resolution images, slightly better tool handling on the part of 'robots' [turtles], key_press/key_release, etc. ). Also, the mod is open source, which I consider to be a rather large sum of bonus points.

Oh, and persistence? Awesome.

What I would like in CC that's in OC is a mod power system and charges for turtle charging.
And I don't like the multiblock-ness in opencomputers,I prefer having computers that are small enough to fit on small quartz desks.

I just hope this new mod won't overtake computercraft too far, causing computercraft to become outdated. Competition is always a healthy thing to have, though.

But should this happen, I hope someone makes a CC to OC converter, or OC gets a CC "compatibility mode", so some of the many awesome CC programs could still be used and porting wouldn't be nearly as hard.

I rather doubt it'll take over. I haven't tried it and it really doesn't appeal to me enough that I'm likely to do so, but it seems to fill a somewhat different niche. Even if they were in direct competition, OC would have to come up with something staggeringly awesome to weigh up for how incredibly clunky it is at the moment.

OC also uses lua 5.2. It has it downsides and benefits, but the loss of getfenv/setfenv is too big for me…

That's why I probably am going to stay with CC, just about the pesky update of lua..

On the other hand OC seems really cool but one major disadvantage is the installation.. why not just a drag'n'drop in the mods folder? :P/>
Should install it sometime…

Engineer, on 20 January 2014 - 08:01 PM said:

OC also uses lua 5.2. It has it downsides and benefits, but the loss of getfenv/setfenv is too big for me…

Calling getfenv/setfenv on a function has been replaced by setting the environment of a function as an argument to loadfile/loadstring. There's a global _ENV (like _G) for getfenv. Honestly it seems like a more stable system in my opinion.

Gravity, what do you think of OC? Simply the installation takes a huge toll for me, as how am I supposed to get this into my Technic Launcher modpack without breaking, well, everything?

I love it. It's much more realistic, more flexible, and implements so many features I think would be cool to have in CC. But that being said… CC is easier to write programs for.

GravityScore, on 20 January 2014 - 09:12 PM said:

Engineer, on 20 January 2014 - 08:01 PM said:

OC also uses lua 5.2. It has it downsides and benefits, but the loss of getfenv/setfenv is too big for me…

Calling getfenv/setfenv on a function has been replaced by setting the environment of a function as an argument to loadfile/loadstring. There's a global _ENV (like _G) for getfenv. Honestly it seems like a more stable system in my opinion.

I haven't done my research :P/>
That being said, I think I should get into lua 5.2 and OC. Though I dont have that time anymore unfortunately. Toooooooo many projects ;)/>

dudearent006, on 20 January 2014 - 10:57 AM said:

I just hope this new mod won't overtake computercraft too far[…]

I'm flattered you even consider this a possibility :P/> But as you say, I think it's a good thing to have some variety - since RedPower is out of the picture CC pretty much had the monopoly in Computer mods.

Engineer, on 20 January 2014 - 08:01 PM said:

On the other hand OC seems really cool but one major disadvantage is the installation.. why not just a drag'n'drop in the mods folder? :P/>

If you're referring to the VC2012 runtimes, that's outdated info. As of 1.1 it is just that. Drop it into the mods folder and you're good to go (even on Mac. Though I can only test on Mac Mini since that's the only Mac I can get my hands on).

If you're referring to something else… what exactly do you mean?

awsmazinggenius, on 20 January 2014 - 11:35 PM said:

Simply the installation takes a huge toll for me, as how am I supposed to get this into my Technic Launcher modpack without breaking, well, everything?

What do you mean? What breaks? Post crashlogs on Github and I'll fix it. Thanks!

GravityScore, on 21 January 2014 - 12:58 AM said:

CC is easier to write programs for.

Mind elaborating? I'm very much open to suggestions :)/> Though I thought the system of having primary components made it pretty easy to write simple programs (which is by the way kinda what dan200 added with peripheral.find - not saying that it is, but if it was inspired by OC then the friendly competition thing already works :P/>). There are also some videos in the pipeline that will hopefully make getting into the mod easier.

This is my opinion:

Computercraft: simple and rather OP in terms of crafting recipes and space etc.
Opencomputer: complicated and expensive in terms of crafting.

Appeals to different people. So be it.

Would be awesome if dan and the creator of OC joined together and worked on the one computer-based mod…Trying out OC right now, looks really good and sounds fun :)/> I disabled the use of having to 'plug it in' to a power source :P/> I mainly want to try out how these computers work, and the similarities and differences. There are a few I see by just looking at the different block uses. Looks REALLY good. installation is incredibly easy. The only pain, which lasted all of about 2m, was having to update forge. Just download the OC file, drag it into mods folder, finished! Why are people saying its hard???

AutoLocK, on 06 March 2014 - 08:40 AM said:

Would be awesome if dan and the creator of OC joined together and worked on the one computer-based mod…Trying out OC right now, looks really good and sounds fun :)/> I disabled the use of having to 'plug it in' to a power source :P/> I mainly want to try out how these computers work, and the similarities and differences. There are a few I see by just looking at the different block uses. Looks REALLY good. installation is incredibly easy. The only pain, which lasted all of about 2m, was having to update forge. Just download the OC file, drag it into mods folder, finished! Why are people saying its hard???

I think OpenComputers uses 5.2 Lua, where ComputerCraft uses 5.1, and there is a lot of differencecs that ComputerCraft is not yet ready to update to.

I've been fiddling around with OC for the past month - which is slowing down my Minecraft development, as I've been trying to make both CC and OC versions of my programs. What I'd love to see is OC support for Sublime Text - sorta like what Grav did with CC.

As for the modpack: I did some hacking and got OC to work in the pack. And for the power thing, one of the mods in my pack is Advanced Solar Panels, so I just hook up a quantum generator when I'm in creative for a constant power stream while still needing power in survival without having to constantly change the config.

Dear mods, apologize for digging up a 3 mo old thread, also tried to make this some what less ranty, hopefully I succeded

CC The Good

It's simple
It's cheap
It's almost cheaty (YAY!)

Huge community with a large repository of good programs to choose from, also pretty competent developers around here too.

Lots of mods to interface with it, through it's peripheral interface.

CC The Bad

CC is NOT conducive to actual programming.
Tiny display size: The option is in the configs, it doesn't seem to work. Navigating 100 lines of code on that monitor is rage inducing.

The CC environment is 'wrong' leaky globals from one program can influence the execution of another!! That's heresy!! That being said, I took it upon myself to start implementing a require system to be compatible with regular lua libraries…. okay so it's pretty hard, arguing from experience, os.loadAPI is functional and works. - but I'd rather use dofile…. it's way easier to develop with.

OC The Good

Proper library system, many of the pure Lua libararies that exist in the world work out of the box!!!! (The JSON library I've used for years, works)
HUGE displays this is moment of joy was almost as awesome as when I discovered I could run a DOS text editor in 160×120 "back-in-the-day"
Basic posix compliance: Processes have streams!!!!
ACL's to lock out unauthorized users, (this is something dan said he wasn't going to do, to be fair, if it doesn't fit in his vision of the mod, then it should NOT go in it)
Compatibility with CC's peripherals, I had a advanced monitor hooked up to it last night.

OC The Bad


The monitors it provides are not touch compatible with in-game drive by touching, I mean.. c'mon….
The recipes are vomitous and more grindy than gregtech, greg should be taking notes… I'm probably just going to wait until I have build an ME before making these things in survival.

Conclusion:

CC takes its lumps here, from the programmers stand point and from the ease of use standpoint.
OC also needs to stop being so gregtechy, aint' nobody got time for that!

All in all I'm going to just hang up my CC hat for a while, I've played with CC from pretty much day 1 - perhaps I'm just burnt out of those pain points I mentioned, which is fair and probably more a personal preference than an issue CC would/could fix.

But going forward, I'd like both mods to realize something… Programming cannot and will not be gamified if people cannot and do not share libraries in a way that is more natural.

Programming is not a game, sure it can influence your game, but its difficult to gamify, gamification comes from clean obvious upgrade paths, or tech trees. The best we can do in CC and OC is a good shared module system that is fully integrated alla node.js's npm - the first computer system to implement that and support it wins.

Not a third party solution by some kid who'll abandon it in a couple weeks, but something that will stand the test of time…

I mean

pm search turtle

And you see 1000's of programs dealing with turtles.. that mod would win, regardless of its nuances.

While I haven't tried OC yet and suspect its recipes are subject to change, I've certainly got some comments on the GregTech way of doing things…

Back when I first discovered the wide world of modpacks (some time after MineCraft's official "out of beta release", I'd been playing the first world I'd ever created (back in alpha). I had nowhere left to advance to, and most of my time playing the game consisted of exploring the caves under my base and turning them into neat rectangular shapes with smooth stone walls, glass over lava pits, rails everywhere I could afford and so on.

I'm the sorta guy who, if left to his own devices long enough, would probably end up programming a turtle to flatten the world. Solid smooth stone all the way down.

Anyway, the first pack I encountered was MindCrack with GregTech hardmode enabled. It was a server world, but I was pretty much the only player, and like a pig in mud I built my ultimate grav suit or whatever it was called. Probably took me months. I'd probably still be playing that world if a certain CC bug hadn't rendered it a crash-fest.

However, having ploughed right through the GT tech tree… I don't think I'd do it again. I still absolutely hate world resets, but if you're playing online they're inevitable - other players have such short attention spans, especially when my idea of a decent lifespan of a world is "forever". A month or two just doesn't cut it, especially when mixed in with the likes of GT.

My point is that lengthy recipes you have to "work towards" seem much more appealing to newbies of a given mod than to players who've already had to wade through them X amount of times in Y amount of other worlds. Someone who's played enough MineCraft will eventually be tempted by that "creative mode" button. Anyway, such recipes aren't a "bad" thing, they're just not for everyone, and people do change.

ComputerCraft, incidentally, lets you circumvent a lot of effort when moving worlds - a well-made wood chopper script, for example, can be ported over pretty much straight away to hand you an unlimited automated wood/charcoal supply at the cost of a couple hour's mining. It's nice to be able to drag my baggage with me and refine it as I go.

Mix such a script with TE's stuff and you could go on to have turtles reconstruct your entire base for you (Igneous Extruder + Aqueous Accumulator = unlimited smooth stone for free. Add a small power source to process it = unlimited gravel/sand/glass/etc).

I like to upgrade modpacks fairly regularly. I kept on playing Unleashed for a while even when Monster was out but eventually made the jump. If I'm in creative, CC is like the only mod I use besides mods which add building blocks to make "bases" with, but in survival, I like never touch it.

I've been poking around and found this magical object called the "internet card" :D/>
It's not as good as pure sockets, but, it gets the job done for a lot of things.

I really hate to say this– I mean I hate to. It hurts me to say it, but if I where new and was picking from one of them… I'd go with Open Computers–IF CC didn't have pocket computers
Why? Because of the complexity, the power requirement, and the modular-ness. I like to build something complex and cool if it does something really cool. I like the challenge of finding a spot to hide it or making it look cool. I could make a room with all the processors, GPU, storage, power and then route it all to monitors in different rooms. I love doing that.
Another thing is that it feels like CC is dead. Besides Pocket Computers, what has cc really gained in the past months? Not much. And I hate it when mods become "dead"

here i my thoughts, though note i have not tried programming for it.
I love the hardware of opencomputers, i love that ALL screens are visable without right click, and i love the persistance, and that you can click on a monetor to start typing on it.

though i can not stand the COST! if i want to start programming on a computer, i do not want to have to sit through crafting so many tiny parts for a bigger part, or spend all day mining just to start playing with one.



edit: oh ya, i forgot somthing, opencomputers seem to not have a wiki, making figuring out how to program on them a lot harder.

it is 100% a ripoff, but i guess it is a sorta cool mod, still sticking to CC

Hello there! Can you help me a bit with OpenComputers with CC's peripherals? You posted: "Compatibility with CC's peripherals, I had a advanced monitor hooked up to it last night." How can I use CC's peripherals? I can detect them in component list (icbm_machine_5), but I don't know how to tell OC to interact with them as CC peripheral (i.e. tell it to use some of ICBM CC api). Thanks!

12sd, on 13 June 2014 - 10:43 PM said:

Hello there! Can you help me a bit with OpenComputers with CC's peripherals? You posted: "Compatibility with CC's peripherals, I had a advanced monitor hooked up to it last night." How can I use CC's peripherals? I can detect them in component list (icbm_machine_5), but I don't know how to tell OC to interact with them as CC peripheral (i.e. tell it to use some of ICBM CC api). Thanks!

You'll likely need to ask on the OC forum.

Cranium, on 13 June 2014 - 10:48 PM said:

12sd, on 13 June 2014 - 10:43 PM said:

Hello there! Can you help me a bit with OpenComputers with CC's peripherals? You posted: "Compatibility with CC's peripherals, I had a advanced monitor hooked up to it last night." How can I use CC's peripherals? I can detect them in component list (icbm_machine_5), but I don't know how to tell OC to interact with them as CC peripheral (i.e. tell it to use some of ICBM CC api). Thanks!

You'll likely need to ask on the OC forum.

Just for refernece, that is here: oc.cil.li

The further I look into OC the more I realize CC made good design choices. While higher resolution sounds great, now your text and pixels are unaligned, and GUI coding(an already painful processes) gets harder, and it also means more data for the server to send to the client, causing more lag. While having big networks sounds cool, now you spend 1/2 your time managing your network and trying to make 1 computer do as much as possible so you don't eat up all your power. Also they don't have pocket computers, a major win for CC

Slash0mega, on 06 June 2014 - 07:51 AM said:

here i my thoughts, though note i have not tried programming for it.
I love the hardware of opencomputers, i love that ALL screens are visable without right click, and i love the persistance, and that you can click on a monetor to start typing on it.

though i can not stand the COST! if i want to start programming on a computer, i do not want to have to sit through crafting so many tiny parts for a bigger part, or spend all day mining just to start playing with one.



edit: oh ya, i forgot somthing, opencomputers seem to not have a wiki, making figuring out how to program on them a lot harder.

wiki's on the github: https://github.com/MightyPirates/OpenComputers/wiki/

I'm new to OpenComputers. I only know 1 program for lua on CC but not sure about OpenCs. I like the mod compatibilities for OpenCs (IC2, BuildCraft, Red Logic, Project Red) but I completely prefer CC - I don't know how to set up an OpenComputer.

I like OpenComputers and CC pretty much the same. OpenComputers is very complex to get a computer running. You need like computer components like a CPU, Graphics card, Memory (RAM), a monitor and other stuff.

Advantages of OpenComputers:

• It's very good for advanced programmers.
• It has mod compatibility (Buildcraft for Power, TE, etc.)

Disadvantages:

• It's very complex to setup.
• It's very heavy on resources. (As in, it takes a lot of items and stuff to craft)
• It can glitch out (I had a glitch when I had 2 typing cursors.)
• It can bluescreen very easily if you don't set it up correctly.

Computercraft:
Advantages:

• It doesn't require power
• It's not complex
• It's basic
• You don't need a monitor

Disadvantages:

• It can crash sometimes (Very Rarely)

the things i love about OpenComputers:
- you have to make actual components and it feels statisfying to make a working computer in survival
- the ram of LuaJ is determined by the amount of ram you put into your computer
- the hologram projector is so awesome O.o
- it uses an actual disk to boot off off instead of a built in operating system that you cant even change.
- it requires power
- the server rack and the servers itself are the best, i have asked for this in computercraft for so long

things i hate:
- the robots, its the worst, i mean like come on, a leveling system, its electronics ffs, if you want it to be better you make it better, you dont "train" a piece of pure logic
- the small to no community for it.
- the default router, switch and other networking blocks. it should be so you can make your own instead of that.

in survival i would go for open computers because its just more realistic and you have to take more things into considderation with large programs
in creative of for setting up a network or just for the large community, i would defenatly choose computercraft

my oppinion on the future of both mods:
i would really like computercraft to make some mayor changes like the actual components you need to craft for the computers, that would be nice for a survival feature. of course that would be able to be turned off with a config option. computers require power, persistant computers. but keep the turtles as they are and make them accept power aswell maybe though a power outlet.

I have something to add that I LOVE that they did.

Sockets.

Sockets are amazing and something I've been wanting to be implemented for a *long* time in ComputerCraft. Now that OpenComputers has them, I'm sorry to say that's tipped the edge and I'm breaking away from ComputerCraft.

my ponderings on this, after using OC for a few days:

it's long and rambling, because i'm like that, so i'll spoiler-wrap it :

Spoiler

first impressions: I really like OpenComputers.

reasons:

1) it's open source.
this is always a win for me. not because i'm a "freetard" that wants everything for nothing, but because i fervently believe that knowledge should not and must not be closed for [literally] the sake of the future of humanity [unlikely to be applicable in this context, but the principle stands]. i respect someone's right to keep their knowledge closed, but i'll always chose an open source product first given a choice, as it allows knowledge to propagate to the rest of society. "products" can be sold, but the knowledge to make them should always be free [in all senses of the word]

2) its OS.
from simple things like how it recognises a .lua extension as an executable without the extension - thus making off-line editors able to recognise the filetype and do syntax highlighting for you - to its file structure methodology/POSIX-ness/ OS tailoring.

3) the modular nature/cost.
sure CC is cheap to build and run - and i do like that for all the obvious reasons - but OC just feels like you've actually built a computer, and built your own computer. some may say it's too expensive, but since all the recipes are configurable - that's up to the user/server admin.

4) the oppm software repository system.
simple, thoughtful, damn useful. sure it's good to learn how to do a task yourself, but that shouldn't conflict with the need for a good repository. just because there's a library in the town doesn't mean we don't learn how to write.

5) the robots.
they look cool, and [contentious issue warning] they need training.

wilcomega, on 27 July 2014 - 08:20 PM said:

things i hate:
- the robots, its the worst, i mean like come on, a leveling system, its electronics ffs, if you want it to be better you make it better, you dont "train" a piece of pure logic

… i won't presume to know how much robotics experience you have wilcomega, but i've been building and programming them IRL for years… all robots need training… i'd say 90% of something like ASIMO is training, not coding.
sure, there's logic in there, but the logic is there to build eigenvalues and fuzzy logic - those values are learnt with hours of training. even simple PID control of something like a robot arm takes a lot of tweaking, not of the logic, but of the K values going into the PID system.
training robots is a very real thing - i think the way they've implemented it within the realms of minecraft is a really nice touch. at least they didn't do this. :)/>)

6) persistence.
persistence is useful. yup, i've written some cunning "stateless" systems which remove the need for persistence, but if you're not designing a stateless system, you need persistence, you either need to invent a state machine, or you download one… either way you still had to do design pattern boilerplate for the Nth time.
sure, the OC persistence might break in edge cases, but in those cases i'll shrug and reset my state. the most tedious part of non-persistence is the "oh, i've just walked across a chunk boundary due to distraction/ getting something, and lost all my work" derp, and it's lovely to not have to worry about that.
anyone that thinks lack of persistence should be a feature which we have to work around [to show how clever and inventive we are] can give themselves a star in their report book to show their offspring in years to come … the rest of us can get on with doing the things we need persistence for. :)/>

7) they look cool.
OC's look and feel is to CC as Alienware is to IBM PC XT. i'm a big fan of bauhaus/form-follows-function design, so i've nothing against CC's look per se…. but it is fundamentally a box, or a yellow box [ coloured turtles aside, which are a welcome addition ] … and as said by other folks: freaking holograms, voxel programmable holograms with pallet swapping [and therefore animation] capabilities.
we're a fickle lot, but we're also an artistic lot when it comes down to it… having things look nice/cool is a must-have in 99% of cases. most CC computers i build, i hide the edges with microblock strips and panels just to make them less "brutal" [ in the "brutalist" design philosophy ] the pulsing network switches and disassemblers/assemblers etc of OC, i want to show-off.



so, problems i've had with OC? to be honest, i haven't experienced any so far, but i've only used it for a day or two…


… all this might sound like i now spit on CC, nothing could be further from the truth. i love CC… but then I also love my 80s Sinclair Spectrum which i have in a draw at home… i love my 80s Acorn BBC Master system for doing music on… but i don't use the former, and rarely use the latter anymore, not because i don't love them, but because there's now machines which will do it better, and on my first few day's experience an OC computer is simpler and nicer to use.

do i think that OC is a rip-off of CC? not in the slightest… sure, it's lua, but lua is ubiquitous for in-game scripting engines… [sure, as another poster said they could have used something like scheme to make it stand out… but even though i know both languages, i'd rather use lua than scheme] and other than that, the only similarity i can see is in the robots, but they're certainly not a "copy" any more than one could say a modern-day car is a copy of a model-T, sure they both have 4 wheels, seats, a steering mechanism and an engine… but how else should you design a car when the general design pattern is a standard. [ aside: if you want to see an actual rip-off, compare NedoComputers to RedPowerControl - i bet Elo' is shouting a bit at that one, far more than dan should at OC - however the difference there is that NedoComputers is badly implemented]

do i think that OC is "the end" of CC? well, i'd say it's certainly a warning shot across its bows… the simplicity of the CC recipes is now a feature more than it needs to be, i.e. it means that people can chose CC for simple packs, or OC for more survivalist/ hardcore packs…. but i'm not sure that's a good thing for CC. there's no way that making CC recipes more complicated now will help that at all, that horse has already gone. the only way i can see CC being as important in future modpacks is for dan to come up with something revolutionary… however, i do think that CC is "feature complete" - barring persistence… and all the other features i can think of, the OC guys have also gotten there first.

TL;DR =
personally, the only thing keeping CC in my "needs" list for a modpack is OpenPeripherals and/or OpenCCSensors depending on what i'm doing… but parts of both of their functionality already exist in OpenComputers in the form of robot module upgrades. I think i'm like the poster above: i'll use CC for creative/map control, OC for actual gameplay.

ingie, on 05 August 2014 - 11:51 AM said:

2) its OS.
from simple things like how it recognises a .lua extension as an executable without the extension - thus making off-line editors able to recognise the filetype and do syntax highlighting for you - to its file structure methodology/POSIX-ness/ OS tailoring.

well you can make CC recognise and run files with .lua without specifying it, its just that's not what the shell does. Also the whole tailored to mimic a Linux system can also be a downfall, since a large percentage of the market are Windows users, and a large percentage of Minecraft players are children, they don't necessarily know how to use a unix based system, personally I think the amalgamation of the OSes so people from both worlds can use the system is a good approach (if you don't know what I mean, type dir and ls into a CC computer).

theoriginalbit, on 05 August 2014 - 12:01 PM said:

well you can make CC recognise and run files with .lua without specifying it, its just that's not what the shell does.

exactly… and it should, out of the box.

edit 2: and you make an interesting point… to modify the OC shell and any of the default libraries you just install it on to a virtual hard disk and edit it… CC is faff-city in that regard.

theoriginalbit, on 05 August 2014 - 12:01 PM said:

Also the whole tailored to mimic a Linux system can also be a downfall, since a large percentage of the market are Windows users, and a large percentage of Minecraft players are children, they don't necessarily know how to use a unix based system, personally I think the amalgamation of the OSes so people from both worlds can use the system is a good approach (if you don't know what I mean, type dir and ls into a CC computer).

however, since i was talking about why i like it, and i'm 100% linux + mac… that point is moot. plus i'd rather people/children learn how linux/osx works in its structure and methodology, than windows… [ that's not flamebait, it's just how i'd like things to be ] … unix/osx is more sensible. [ IMO - again, that's not up for discussion here, my point was - i prefer it to CC because of those reasons - edit: i.e. i'm not decreeing everyone else should ]

edit 2: oh, but since you did come back with that point… OC does the same… dir/ls cls/clear help/man etc…

ingie, on 05 August 2014 - 06:51 PM said:

theoriginalbit, on 05 August 2014 - 12:01 PM said:

well you can make CC recognise and run files with .lua without specifying it, its just that's not what the shell does.

exactly… and it should, out of the box.

OC emulates more of a modern shell. CC is more late 80's early 90's shells. None of those earlier shells had filetype association like you're expecting or used to. You actually had to type out the entire filename by hand in order for it to work. Everything else past the basic CraftOS Shell is just extra fluff that does that stuff for you.

I do like the idea of building your computer, and having it require power and resources, but I like the focus of ComputerCraft towards the coding part of things, rather than the realism.

Cranium, on 05 August 2014 - 06:56 PM said:

ingie, on 05 August 2014 - 06:51 PM said:

theoriginalbit, on 05 August 2014 - 12:01 PM said:

well you can make CC recognise and run files with .lua without specifying it, its just that's not what the shell does.

exactly… and it should, out of the box.

OC emulates more of a modern shell. CC is more late 80's early 90's shells. None of those earlier shells had filetype association like you're expecting or used to. You actually had to type out the entire filename by hand in order for it to work.

um… MS-DOS used to happily take BAT and COM/EXE files without the extension back in the 80s … i've been using DOS since 3.3 and probably before - i'm very old ;)/>

i do get your point though, and I agree that CC is intended to be retro… and as i say, i do love it for all it is.

ingie, on 05 August 2014 - 07:30 PM said:

Cranium, on 05 August 2014 - 06:56 PM said:

ingie, on 05 August 2014 - 06:51 PM said:

theoriginalbit, on 05 August 2014 - 12:01 PM said:

well you can make CC recognise and run files with .lua without specifying it, its just that's not what the shell does.

exactly… and it should, out of the box.

OC emulates more of a modern shell. CC is more late 80's early 90's shells. None of those earlier shells had filetype association like you're expecting or used to. You actually had to type out the entire filename by hand in order for it to work.

um… MS-DOS used to happily take BAT and COM/EXE files without the extension back in the 80s … i've been using DOS since 3.3 and probably before - i'm very old ;)/>

i do get your point though, and I agree that CC is intended to be retro… and as i say, i do love it for all it is.

I am not sure whether CC is intended to be retro. I would say that it is intended to be more basic and that CC is concentrating more on programming than on stuff you don't need. An advantage of CC is that it is very useful in things of practical use while OC isn't that much because you have to setup a power grid and stuff like that.
Both CC and OC have there advantages and I thing everybody has to decide by himself whether he wants to use CC and it's simplicity and ease of use or OC and it's (sort of) realism.

Here are some possibly good points about OC

• It has persistance, which makes it better to return to whatever you were doing.
• It has RAM limits, which I personally find really helpful, because it pushes me towards creating more efficient programs that use the least amount of RAM as possible.
• It is open source, which makes it really nice for modifying, and distributing your own versions. So if I wanted to low the RAM limits for example, I could do that, and distribute it.
• It has server racks, which hold 4 computers in a single block. And say if you wanted storage servers, 3x T3 4MB HDD makes 12 MB of storage, which could be used for datacenters in servers.
• The developer plans to add colored wires, which can make a better compact datacenter.
• It stops against port sniffing.

Bad points

• Its harder to learn the mod and programming on OC compared to CC, though the file structure is similar to Linux.
• The mod uses power sources, which makes it harder for survival, which I personally don't mind.
• The wires to communicate can't go through unloaded chunks (There may be a mod, but Immibis's peripherals can do so)

Csstform, on 17 June 2014 - 09:05 PM said:

Slash0mega, on 06 June 2014 - 07:51 AM said:

here i my thoughts, though note i have not tried programming for it.
I love the hardware of opencomputers, i love that ALL screens are visable without right click, and i love the persistance, and that you can click on a monetor to start typing on it.

though i can not stand the COST! if i want to start programming on a computer, i do not want to have to sit through crafting so many tiny parts for a bigger part, or spend all day mining just to start playing with one.



edit: oh ya, i forgot somthing, opencomputers seem to not have a wiki, making figuring out how to program on them a lot harder.

wiki's on the github: https://github.com/M...Computers/wiki/

OCD(oc).cil.li also works.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, on 11 August 2014 - 02:09 AM said:

Csstform, on 17 June 2014 - 09:05 PM said:

wiki's on the github: https://github.com/M...Computers/wiki/

OCD(oc).cil.li also works.

Speaking of the new wiki, the old one will no longer be updatd. Just a small warning for those who enjoyed using the other wiki.
Here is a link to the wiki. I'm unsure of why you decided to format yours the way you did. OpenComputers Documentation I think is what it's supposed to be, not OCD OpenComputers.

I wanted to share a bit of an outsider's perspective. I'm not a coder, and I would normally never bother with learning a programing language in a videogame. When I saw computercraft in a modpack, I dismissed it as irrelevant to my game. Then I saw how cheap they were to build, and started playing around with them…

Several programs and several months later, I'm still not very good at lua, but I understand a lot more about than I ever would have done normally.

Something like OpenComputers would have never even remotely interested me. ComputerCraft being cheap is a hook that can attract people like me

Well, I Perfer CC Because The Computers Are Not Expensive, And It is Easy To Code.
Comparision :

Computercraft | OpenComputers
—————————————————-|————————————————————————————————–
Easy To Craft | Does Not Have An OS By Deafult To Make It Easy To Make Install My Own OS
1 Block To Use A PC , No Assembling | Temporary Files
Starts In A Flash | Gives Me Tips About The Mod
Easy To Use Redstone With | Can Project Holograms
Easy To Use Preinstalled OS | Screens And PC Cases Can Be Coloured
No Need For A Keyboard | Can Mix Screens By Changing Graphics Cards

Thats All I Can Say

While this is a old topic, I think it adresses a core problem of both CC and OC:
Noone uses it.
Now don't get me wrong, but the thing with CC and OC is that the majority of the community(ies) are coders themselves, meaning we
just code for each other and everyone just tries to use their own software anyways. What I mean by that is that we (the community) try to develop
something for the looks on the screen or provide this-and-that on the screen. Thing is only very few people use CC to actually use it in a "outside-world" context, like
to control something like a Nuc. Reactor or (nooby program incoming) a door lock. Most people just use it (CC and OC) to build programs that can easily be replaced
by just getting out a piece of paper and just writing it down. CC is more of a toy inside of a toy (Minecraft) than a tool inside of a toy.

For what it's worth Mr Obsidy, some of us do specifically use Computercraft as an in-game tool. One of the first things i do with diamonds and ender pearls is spend them on turtles and wireless modems; in early game they cut stairways, do branch mining and smart forestry. By midgame, my base would have a dozen different computer systems controlling boilers, refineries, quarries, and monitoring inventory levels. Sure, i have a suite of custom software i've written, but i've never designed some fancy GUI to show off my programming skills or anything other than basic in-game uses. I might have taught my daughter to program using Computercraft, but mainly so she could figure out how to automate bases on our servers. We still haven't even moved forward to 1.10.* because so much of what we use is reliant upon reading Buildcraft gates. Replacing those functions and learning OpenComputers at the same time is just onerous enough that i have been holding out for the rumoured open-sourcing of CC before we move forward.

I like OpenComputers better from a design aspect; I think it's better balanced and also has a bit cooler of a design to the blocks, crafting, etc. From a usability standpoint I prefer ComputerCraft, and ComputerCraft has a vastly larger software library and more documentation. You simply can't replace the years of forum posts and wiki pages from ComputerCraft. And CC is definitely simpler to craft and write programs, but after a while that gets a bit boring.

One of the few things we've always wanted that OC has is a bigger resolution. If this was possible we would of have much more better games and such. I believe personally (any many others do) that their programs are being limited to the size of the screen. You have to be really careful about how you are making your stuff on CC as you don't want to run out of space. Whereas in OC, the screen size is pretty massive, people have made some pretty decent renders and Operating systems that are actually good on there and hopefully if there was a way to increase the screen size in normal computer craft we would all by happy.

TheRockettek, on 21 April 2017 - 07:43 AM said:

One of the few things we've always wanted that OC has is a bigger resolution. If this was possible we would of have much more better games and such. I believe personally (any many others do) that their programs are being limited to the size of the screen. You have to be really careful about how you are making your stuff on CC as you don't want to run out of space. Whereas in OC, the screen size is pretty massive, people have made some pretty decent renders and Operating systems that are actually good on there and hopefully if there was a way to increase the screen size in normal computer craft we would all by happy.

OC also has a stock peripheral with AES encryption and public key encryption. Public key encryption is something that can't be effectively done in CC.

Theres an api for that on the forums somewhere i believe

TheRockettek, on 23 April 2017 - 02:15 PM said:

Theres an api for that on the forums somewhere i believe

Yes but it takes minutes to generate a pathetically weak key, and seconds to encrypt. OC's peripherals use native code to do instantly.

D3matt, on 23 April 2017 - 04:03 PM said:

Yes but it takes minutes to generate a pathetically weak key, and seconds to encrypt. OC's peripherals use native code to do instantly.

There is the cryptographic accelerator from immibis's peripherals and Computronics's cipher block. CCTweaks's also includes a biginteger API, which should allow you to create a relatively secure RSA implementation. I think this does highlight a big difference between OC and CC though: CC is very minimal and uses peripherals to add the bells and whistles, OC bundles pretty much everything together (though exposed through various cards, and what not). Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses.

SquidDev, on 23 April 2017 - 04:10 PM said:

D3matt, on 23 April 2017 - 04:03 PM said:

Yes but it takes minutes to generate a pathetically weak key, and seconds to encrypt. OC's peripherals use native code to do instantly.

There is the cryptographic accelerator from immibis's peripherals and Computronics's cipher block. CCTweaks's also includes a biginteger API, which should allow you to create a relatively secure RSA implementation. I think this does highlight a big difference between OC and CC though: CC is very minimal and uses peripherals to add the bells and whistles, OC bundles pretty much everything together (though exposed through various cards, and what not). Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses.

OC just has things built in as peripherals that otherwise are added by additional mods in CC. The advantage here is that you can always rely on everything in OC being in a pack/server. With CC you may, or may not, have a given peripheral (more likely not right now since the latest official CC release is 1.9)

D3matt, on 23 April 2017 - 04:43 PM said:

SquidDev, on 23 April 2017 - 04:10 PM said:

D3matt, on 23 April 2017 - 04:03 PM said:

Yes but it takes minutes to generate a pathetically weak key, and seconds to encrypt. OC's peripherals use native code to do instantly.

There is the cryptographic accelerator from immibis's peripherals and Computronics's cipher block. CCTweaks's also includes a biginteger API, which should allow you to create a relatively secure RSA implementation. I think this does highlight a big difference between OC and CC though: CC is very minimal and uses peripherals to add the bells and whistles, OC bundles pretty much everything together (though exposed through various cards, and what not). Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses.

OC just has things built in as peripherals that otherwise are added by additional mods in CC. The advantage here is that you can always rely on everything in OC being in a pack/server. With CC you may, or may not, have a given peripheral (more likely not right now since the latest official CC release is 1.9)

It is all a matter of taste.

Hello!

I do NOT see what the big whoop is about opencomputers…the ONLY upside I see to it is that it's the only one to be updated to the newer versions of MC. As Dan has of course been working on Redirection and some other games, he has released the new fact that he will be ABANDONING COMPUTERCRAFT!! I LOVE CC…I don't want to see it go. It's so simple and fun…I got into a creative world and played around with OC and could not figure it out, I had to google stuff just to figure out how to create a file. Why is this a thing?? CC is nice because I can create the turtle/computer (turtles are my favorite) and just program all night long…I don't have to worry about power, and lockouts, and weird code that's SO different…Personally I think OC is REALLY ridiculous…as I was saying about it being the only mod being updated to the newer versions of MC, that's great and all, but it doesn't let me use it any better…if it doesn't work in older versions, then there's really no point in updating it…Computercraft has been put into MANY modpacks, and nobody even uses it. That's because it's up to us, (The Programmers) to create the user programs so they can enjoy the amazing mod as well. I think OC just got lucky in Dan giving up on the great mod, so they took the podium…when cc was around, OC got almost no recognition pretty much anywhere…modpacks wasn't including it, yt didn't have anything except tutorials, while CC had program showcases taking over 20 pages. DW20 was like the biggest user I saw. Sethbling, I've even met professional programmers playing around with CC. Schools used CC to teach lua coding. Then CC EDU took the plate for schools which was awesome as well. OC never got that kind of recognition.

In all, I say CC is WAY better and still would be today if Dan would continue work on it. I doubt it'll ever be as good if someone else tries, they don't know the mod quite like he did.

ComputerCraft is currently updated by the community with releases still done by Dan (eventually…).