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Posted 17 January 2015 - 02:13 AM
I've been thinking a lot lately, especially on the purpose of ComputerCraft and what emulators do to it.
ComputerCraft is a mod that is supposed to allow for computers to be used within your minecraft world, to help with automation and information distribution & displaying it, possibly playing games while automated tasks are going on, and sensing & logging information about the world. It works great, and is a FANTASTIC tool to use, especially when playing heavily modded.
The issue with emulators is that there is no minecraft world to manage. While this is possibly okay for some game development, the fact is, it's basically a really underpowered GUI API with some other helpers. What is the purpose at this point? Why even use ComputerCraft rather than an engine for lua made to run much more efficiently with more graphical power? You don't have rednet, you don't have peripherals, and you don't have turtles! There's no world to interact with! If that wasn't enough, when you program something in an emulator, you can't be sure it will even work with the actual CC!
My question, to everyone, is why. Why do you need an emulator? What benefit does using 15% of the mod give you?
Edited on 17 January 2015 - 01:13 AM
98 posts
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Australia
Posted 17 January 2015 - 03:39 AM
Because waiting 5 minutes for Minecraft to start as opposed to 5 seconds for an emulator is not a very good idea.
Because it's easier to manage development in an emulator, and you aren't restricted to the in-game editor (for multiplayer anyway)
Because if I want to create programs that don't involve peripherals, rednet or turtles, it's obvious that it would be easier to develop it in an emulator.
Of course there are reasons why it's better to do it in Minecraft, but if I believe it's easier to develop in an emulator, I will develop it in an emulator.
Your tone of voice seems to look down on emulator users. I hope this doesn't turn into a discussion similar to console vs. PC users.
7083 posts
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Tasmania (AU)
Posted 17 January 2015 - 04:27 AM
If you use an emulator to code up your script, then sure the result might not work in ComputerCraft, but odds are 99% of it will and it won't take you long to debug the bits that don't.
As far as I'm aware, no one writes scripts that are intended to be run in emulators. They merely use emulators to facilitate the development of those scripts.
A better question might be, why develop a script for ComputerCraft that doesn't interact with the MineCraft world? Both the scripts in my signatures are good examples - there are much better Tetris and card games possible outside of MineCraft, and they serve no practical purpose in-game. The reason I wrote them anyway is because I thought having them in MineCraft would be cool. Seriously, you can go up to a bunch of MineCraft blocks, and you can play FreeCell on them. I think that's cool.
Which, when you get right down to it, is the reason why people do anything in MineCraft. Coding related or otherwise.
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Posted 17 January 2015 - 06:00 AM
the thing is, you can use out-of game editors out of the game, and do everything you could do and more in-game
for me, starting up a full modpack and loading my world in 1.25 minutes–for the entire day.
Edited on 17 January 2015 - 09:17 AM
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Australia
Posted 17 January 2015 - 06:04 AM
the thing is, you can use out-of game editors out of the game, and do everything you could do and more in-game
for me, starting up a full modpack and loading my world in 1.25 minutes–for the entire day.
Not everyone has access to minecraft/a computer that isn't a toaster 24/7. If people want to code on a machine that doesn't have/can't run minecraft, emulators are their only hope.
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Posted 17 January 2015 - 06:20 AM
the thing is, you can use out-of game editors out of the game, and do everything you could do and more in-game
for me, starting up a full modpack and loading my world in 1.25 minutes–for the entire day.
Not everyone has access to minecraft/a computer that isn't a toaster 24/7. If people want to code on a machine that doesn't have/can't run minecraft, emulators are their only hope.
which is 1% of the people who emulate
what I'm trying to say here, is that emulation is gaining popularity, but it's not a replacement for the CC mod, nor is it a good replacement for developing on minecraft
Edited on 17 January 2015 - 05:20 AM
98 posts
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Australia
Posted 17 January 2015 - 06:30 AM
Well, your OP is trying to say this:
what I'm trying to say here is it's not a good replacement for developing on minecraft
People have their reasons of why they use emulators, some of which I have outlined above, just like how you have reasons why you think developing on Minecraft is better. But what you're saying is that "developing on minecraft is superior", and not giving it a second thought.
Emulation is gaining popularity because it's users find it easier to develop with, and there is
literally no other reason of why it would be gaining popularity.
I, for one, emulate because I find it easier to develop in an emulator. If you can respect my opinion, I can respect yours.
7083 posts
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Tasmania (AU)
Posted 17 January 2015 - 06:36 AM
Not everyone has access to minecraft/a computer that isn't a toaster 24/7.
Ironically, MineCraft turns most computers
into toasters - running it requires a fair bit of electricity to pump through your processor, and if you've got it sitting in an unfocused window all day, all it's really being used for is to generate heat.
There
is a place for alternatives.
2151 posts
Location
Auckland, New Zealand
Posted 17 January 2015 - 08:17 AM
As has sort of been touched on, the main reason I use emulators is because of the battery usage. Running an emulator gets me about 8 - 9 hours of battery while Minecraft will get 1 - 2. It's also just a bit quicker and convenient.
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Posted 17 January 2015 - 04:59 PM
for me, minecraft hardly makes a difference in performance. I leave it open all day, even when I take breaks and play TF2
for battery life, I can definitely see that.
But another issue with emulators is that people submit false bug reports. I've had this happen with a program where someone told me clicking something froze. I didn't know what they where talking about until I was fooling around with my program at school on an emulator and had it happen.
Again with the peripheral issue, when people solely use emulation, they never make programs compatible/to take advantage of these peripherals. Meaning a huge chunk of CC is just unused
Edited on 17 January 2015 - 04:00 PM
1522 posts
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The Netherlands
Posted 17 January 2015 - 05:03 PM
Meaning a huge chunk of CC is just unused
apparantly people want to make games more than actually make utility programs which interfere with the world of minecraft. It is an opinion you are forcing to take people which makes no sense, as it is healthy for everybody to have an opinion on the subject.
I respect your opinion if you respect mine, but I really think this duscussion is not worth it to make, simply because it is a preference thing
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Posted 17 January 2015 - 09:24 PM
Meaning a huge chunk of CC is just unused
apparently*(had to) people want to make games more than actually make utility programs which interfere with the world of minecraft. It is an opinion you are forcing to take people which makes no sense, as it is healthy for everybody to have an opinion on the subject.
I respect your opinion if you respect mine, but I really think this
discussion* is not worth it to make, simply because it is a preference thing
But when does it come to the point where everyone's using emulators, and CC becomes an underpowered Lua engine
89 posts
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Munich, Germany
Posted 18 January 2015 - 11:00 AM
This will surely never happen. Mainly because emulators cannot offer things like peripherals, turtles , rednet and so on.
An emulator is useful when you want to test your script that does NOT use any features of CC Lua. Maybe I am coding an API for a bigger system that does not rely on any CC-only features ? Why use Minecraft then when I can quickly start an emulator for testing purposes ?
Anyway there are a tons of people out there who use turtles and stuff.Those people will of course always use Minecraft to develop their programs simply because an emulator can only replace a part of CC.
Emulators won't replace CC in Minecraft as they have limited possibilities.
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Does anyone put something serious here?
Posted 18 January 2015 - 11:07 AM
-snip-
But when does it come to the point where everyone's using emulators, and CC becomes an underpowered Lua engine
But is that going to happen? Looking at the programs section:
- APIs and Utilities: 556 topics
- Turtle programs: 551 topics
There is no really good turtle emulator, so clearly emulators are not the dominant force here. Looking at the main programs section we have scripts that work with Big Reactors, AE, ICBM, Thermal Expansion, Steve's factory manager, etc… Emulators are used dominantly by those who don't need to use Minecraft itself, but they are not the majority.
I use an emulator both at home and school, the former because I can't even run a browser and Minecraft at the same time, the latter because IT security might have words with me if I ran Minecraft at school. I don't see a problem with people running emulators, does it matter if you run OpenJDK or Oracle, Clang or GCC, etc…?
Personally whilst I find discussions like this and the 'Lua rants' one useful, I feel they have almost become the too 'angry', 'I'm right, you're wrong' type are argument.
Edited on 18 January 2015 - 10:56 AM
188 posts
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Adelaide, Australia
Posted 18 January 2015 - 12:40 PM
Emulators, its really just a glorified web kit. It's better for battery and responds quicker.
2151 posts
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Auckland, New Zealand
Posted 18 January 2015 - 11:44 PM
Personally whilst I find discussions like this and the 'Lua rants' one useful, I feel they have almost become the too 'angry', 'I'm right, you're wrong' type are argument.
This.
75 posts
Posted 26 February 2015 - 04:02 PM
This will surely never happen. Mainly because emulators cannot offer things like peripherals, turtles , rednet and so on.
An emulator is useful when you want to test your script that does NOT use any features of CC Lua. Maybe I am coding an API for a bigger system that does not rely on any CC-only features ? Why use Minecraft then when I can quickly start an emulator for testing purposes ?
Anyway there are a tons of people out there who use turtles and stuff.Those people will of course always use Minecraft to develop their programs simply because an emulator can only replace a part of CC.
Emulators won't replace CC in Minecraft as they have limited possibilities.
You can emulate rednet..
You could make your own c++ 3d minecraft world that could emulate all those peripherals…
You can emulate anything .-..
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Posted 26 February 2015 - 10:09 PM
A very strong point I feel against the use of emulation, is when people test in it, and do not even test the code in-game–or if they submit bugs caused by an emulator. No emulator will ever likely be perfect, and I find a lot of my things will simply not function when you try to emulate them.
I don't want to bump this–read below before reading this:
well what the title says.
reason:
iam busy with a big windows software project in version 5.2x and iam not sure if i would break something while iam upgrading to version 5.3x
so can i use both versions next to each other? and if yes, how?
wtf?!?!?!?!? post that in a new topic plz
Edited on 06 March 2015 - 02:48 AM
8543 posts
Posted 26 February 2015 - 10:16 PM
That has nothing to do with the emulator and everything to do with development and testing practices.
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Annapolis
Posted 27 February 2015 - 08:11 PM
well what the title says.
reason:
iam busy with a big windows software project in version 5.2x and iam not sure if i would break something while iam upgrading to version 5.3x
so can i use both versions next to each other? and if yes, how?