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Comment by blindriver | Hacker News Reader

On a side note, I've been trying to figure out how to write Java mods for server-side vanilla Minecraft server, but there is basically no documentation at all.

Is it safe to say that this isn't possible? Which flavor of minecraft server is the best documented to write mods for, Spigot?

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There are three competing standards right now:

- Fabric (and Quilt), which uses a mixins system, a really flexible modding API that can do client and server modification

- Paper (and Purpur, Pufferfish, Folia), which is similar to the old-school Bukkit/Spigot ecosystem and supports an intuitive API for server-side plugins. If you're aiming for >30 concurrent players you really need the sorts of performance patching that Paper comes with out of the box, or some custom-developed equivalent to it.

- Forge, which is kinda a general purpose modding API, good for heavy client+server modification like FTB packs

I'd love to green-field everything in Fabric, but the ecosystem is not quite there yet for more serious server setups.

> If you're aiming for >30 concurrent players you really need the sorts of performance patching that Paper comes with out of the box, or some custom-developed equivalent to it.

Fabric has quite a few performance mods that can achieve the same thing. I launched my new 1.20 map last week, and TPS was hanging on at 40 players without most of them even enabled.

Yep, there are some great performance mods for Fabric. This ecosystem of mods is not quite as thorough as paper, but it is improving over time and there's no technical reason Fabric modding can't be used to bring about scaled-up Minecraft without hiccups.

I want to use Minecraft as a sort of platform for teaching my kid how to code.

Which one is the least headache?

I would say out of those, Paper, mainly due to lack of crazy toolchain complexity or unusual concepts like mixins -- while still being quite capable at more advanced things, including an 'escape hatch' to access raw Minecraft objects in the rare cases where that's needed. It's a very intuitive API. I'd say it's a great introduction to Java.

But other things you should also be looking into:

Skript provides an interesting easy-to-use DSL language for Paper/Spigot servers - https://github.com/SkriptLang/Skript

Scarpet provides an interesting easy-to-use DSL language for Fabric servers - https://github.com/gnembon/fabric-carpet/blob/master/docs/sc...

Opencomputers and Computercraft are mods that adds computers to Minecraft, running Lua. OpenGlasses2 lets you code your own augmented reality glasses in Minecraft, because why not? https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/opencomputers https://tweaked.cc/

Pneumaticcraft, Psi, and ProjectRed are three other very logic-heavy Minecraft mods

Minecraft Pi Edition was an ARM-only release of Minecraft Pocket Edition that is scriptable using TCP sockets, with APIs for various programming languages. Unfortunately, it was dead by the time it was finished, as it never got any updates after the initial release, doesn't have ARM64 support, and is a very limited version of the game https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/edition/pi

Minecraft Education edition has a Scratch-like programming system, but it's only available to teachers and is another thing they sorta dropped the ball on https://education.minecraft.net/en-us/resources/computer-sci...

Definitely Paper. Working with Fabric often requires you to get your hands dirty at the compiled bytecode level, which is very powerful for mod authors but really increases the floor for "actually building something that's fun to use" in a way that will probably just be very frustrating for new programmers. Forge is focused on client-side modding which is just inherently trickier and requires more awkward APIs. Paper really gets out of your way and lets you program basically whatever you want to do server-side without worrying at all about needing to install mods client-side. I would't worry at all about capabilities—minecraft is an extremely flexible program, especially with the chat commands system, and you can still create cool custom UIs and behaviors without touching client-side code at all.

There's a bit of a distinction in the Minecraft world between "mods" and "plugins". Even though to the outside perspective they're the same thing, the terms are used for two different communities/ecosystems, basically.

"Plugins" are for bukkit-based compatible servers, like Spigot and Paper (and Folia, with some modifications).

"Mods" are more for forge, sponge, etc servers.

So you can kinda pick which direction you want to go. But the Paper project has a ton of API documentation and a few Github repos to even get you started writing your own plugins. The Discord server has a dev help channel with people happy to answer any questions.

The Sponge team has a similar setup as well if that's the route you'd like to go.

Are any of these choices restricted in their existing or likely future compatibility with where Microsoft is taking the game?

My understanding is server admins will spend money on mods / plugins. Are there any server types more likely to garner paid license or plugins?

Microsoft has struct rules about the stuff you can sell for the server, and servers need to be EULA compliant. If they aren't they can get blacklisted or shutdown.

People do buy plugins but the vast majority of the plugins you'd want to use are free open source plugins. A lot of the paid/closed source stuff is kinda crappy or misleading anyway.

You can run a great server using free plugins and software. It might not be a money maker, but if your goal is to have people play and have fun and not buy stuff it's super easy and doable.

People do still donate to projects to support the authors who make the wheels spin.

Its paper nowadays :) https://papermc.io

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