Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Adventure
6
Using Data Files
IT 'S WHEN YOU
can start to process large amounts of data that computer programming
gets really exciting. Your program then becomes a set of rules that govern how that data is
read, processed and visually represented—the data becomes the really important part.
In this adventure, you will first look at how to create text files that define mazes. The
mazes will then be automatically built in the Minecraft world for you and your friends
to solve; you will wonder how such a small Python program can build something so big
in the Minecraft world.
You are then going to develop this simple idea into a complete virtual 3D scanning
and printing facility called the duplicator room. Anything you build inside the dupli-
cator room can be saved to a file and recalled later, and teleported to any location in
your Minecraft world, and even loaded into Minecraft worlds on other computers!
You will be able to build up your own library of objects and build them in Minecraft
so quickly that your friends will all want duplicating machines of their own!
Reading Data from.a File
Computer programs are generally quite unintelligent—they repeatedly follow instruc-
tions that you give them. If you don't change any input to your program, it will do
exactly the same thing every time you run it. The Minecraft programs you have been
making have been quite interactive because they change what they do depending on
what happens in the game world, which is the input to the program.
