Ian Garland - Coding for Minecrafters: Unofficial Adventures for Kids Learning Computer Code

Copyright 2019 by Hollan Publishing, Inc.

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Cover art by Amanda Brack

Interior art by Amanda Brack and Ian Garland

Cover design by Brian Peterson

Book design by Joshua Barnaby

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-4002-0

E-Book ISBN: 978-1-5107-4004-4

Printed in China

CONTENTS

A NOTE TO PARENTS

The age in which games were considered simple time-wasters is over. These days, games such as Minecraft are nurturing childrens creativity while teaching computational thinking. The problem, however, is in transferring and applying these skills. The fact is that most coding tutorials are boring, focusing solely on the theory rather than the infinite number of things you can do with the techniques they teach.

In contrast, Coding for Minecrafters aims to turn coding from a chore into a hobby. Well explore coding concepts such as variables, loops, and functions, but the real emphasis is always on the ways these can be used to create anything your child can imagine.

This book uses Minecraft-themed settings and characters to provide a familiar backdrop for your childs learning. Whether they want to make music with Steve, animate a creeper, or mod the game directly, theres something for everyone inside! Todays novice coders are tomorrows tech giants, after all, and Coding for Minecrafters aims to help your child take their first steps on a long, exciting journey of discovery.

REQUIREMENTS

A copy of Minecraft for Windows or macOS

A TextEditor

For Windows users, Notepad is fine, as is TextEdit for macOS. That said, we recommend using the color-coded interfaces offered by the following programs, if possible:

For Windows: Notepad++
Available at: https://notepad-plus-plus.org

For macOS: Atom
Available at:https://atom.io

A web browser and Internet connection. Certain aspects of HTML5 do not function properly in Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, so I recommend using Google Chrome if at all possible. Its important to allow pop-ups on the pages we create by clicking the button at the right-hand side of the address bar.

Google Chrome is available at: https://www.google.com/chrome/

WEB DESIGN

MISSION 1

STEVES SENSATIONAL BLOG: BUILD A WEBSITE

S teve wants to create a blog but doesnt know how. With a simple TextEditor and the right code, we can help him out! Were going to use a coding language called HTML to build the basic parts of Steves website for him. Once have this solid start, we can add all sorts of fun extras.

HTML creates the building blocks of a web page, so its important to get it right. After all, if you build a house, you need to make sure the walls dont fall down!

LETS GET SET

Open up your TextEditor (check back with Requirements on , if needed).

The important thing to know is that HTML ALWAYS STARTS WITH THESE LINES:

The DOCTYPE tells your browser what version of HTML youre using. This line used to be really long, but since HTML5 was released, its a lot easier to remember. Thats good because it has to be written at the top of every HTML page you make! Go ahead and type these lines in now.

See the text in the pointy brackets? These are called TAGS . Theres something else, too. MOST TAGS NEED TO BE CLOSED by typing them again, but with a forward slash before the first letter. Here, weve opened our HTML section with . Well close it again down at the bottom of the page like so:

Now, like Steve, HTML PAGES HAVE A HEAD AND A BODY (no legs, though!). Underneath the tag at the top, type:

The head is where we put important information, and the body is where we put things that we want to show up on the website. So lets add some content!

In the body section, were going to add a set of