Programming Tutorial with Minecraft Turtles -- Ep. 3: While- and For-Loops

In this series, I teach you about programming by using Turtles in Minecraft. This is meant as a general purpose programming tutorial, and should help you learn any language.
This episode covers while and for loops.

Music at the end is Cipher by Kevin MacLeod

[SethBling]

Programming teachers use a variety of languages. I learned in C++, the intro programming language at my college was Scheme, and was later changed to Python. I helped teach a programming intro class in Java while I was in college. These are all vastly different programming languages when you get into the deep topics. But in their basics, C++, Python, Java and Lua are all extremely similar. Lua is a fine language to learn with, and ComputerCraft makes for a lot of great sample programs.

[ethanbuchanan]

I'm just starting to code with lua, and this has been really helpful. Thanks Seth

[narutomeansspiral]

Seth, I would just like to tell you that I am grateful for you doing this series. Not only I, but my whole family is learning about programming from you! You teach so thoroughly that even my 6 year old brother can (kind of) keep up! This has taught me a lot, and I hope to learn a lot more as well. Once again, thank you.

[MrFrogmasterG]

Sir, my hat is off to you. please do us all a solid and make more guides for minecraft. You are one of the few that I have seen that are doing the job correctly. Thank you.

[retroskater]

"Select the Second Slot, that's some alliteration."

That's sibilance, silly Seth.

[namp]

I'm a programmer (well learning to become one) myself, i already know all this stuff for VB, JS and C++. Yet still i like watching these for the syntaxes of lua, perhaps new structures as you already explained the previous ones in an EXCELLENT way. It's not too simple like most school teach..

[EverydayMinecraft]

We made it to the mainland - genius! - really enjoying these tutorials

[hijacked]

Just to add a little thing to that, Lua has been utilized in many games thus far inspiring more and more gamers to learn programming even if they dont intend to ever use it as an income source. Breaking down the taboo gap one has to clear to get into programming on his own.

so kudos to seth :)

[stevoplemons]

This makes learning code so much easier and fun. Programming teachers should utilize computercraft!

[ZombyCrusher]

This is amazingly helpful now, because before i could not figure out computer craft thanks to Sethbling it makes so much more sense

[stevoplemons]

I learn best by seeing it done and then trying to replicate it so being able to watch the code and what the code does helps me learn better at least with the basics. I'm learning on my own as well as learning from Seth but it's nice to understand the basics before blasting off into full on programming turtle programs. Plus this is fun for me and fun is better.

[NoNameC]

Not going to lie, learning basic redstone gates helped me understand the first video.

After learning about the different gates, I experimented with redstone and discovered how to make contraptions that work off of multiple gates. This taught me how to put my gates in order. I feel like that kind of knowledge is going to help quite a bit here.

I'll finish the video tomorrow though, too late for me.

[xipheonj]

Yep, and you stumbled on what he was saying near the end about programs being more robust. Sometimes > 0 is better, it covers wierd edge cases where a number could somehow end up negative when it technically never should. I personally always use > 0 instead of ~= 0 as my go to condition.

[saamirt]

Please continue this series! this is the easiest tutorial i've found

[xian]

I think a way to have 'memory' for block ids is to use an ender chest to hold the blocks that you want the turtle to know about. Then have a function to place the ender chest and have it compare the blocks in there with what you want to identify. e.g. slot1 in the enderchest you place a diamond ore block, so the turtle can now identify diamond ore. You'd need to write a function to: place the chest, compare against all the items, return true/false if it found a match, and break the chest.

[shellinD]

This is awesome! I just saw this, but I'm going to start with the first part! Now I get to learn about coding while watching one of favorite Minecraft players of all time! =D

[therealdavidk]

You remind me of my high school programming teacher. He was awesome and so are you! I miss programming >.<

[EverydayMinecraft]

I was drawn to computercraft turtles because of my experiences with Logo turtles - hoping to pass some of this onto my primary after school club

[TheFuggernaught]

I'm really enjoying this series; it's very fun and useful learning to code. Keep it up and merry Christmas :)

[louisrocks]

Well, if you do manage to learn it, which I know you will, it makes you that much smarter! You're learning both programming AND another language! Keep going!