Did playing ComputerCraft help anyone get an ACTUAL coding job?

[ComputerCrafter]

Sometimes, I think that maybe, because CC runs on an actual language (Lua), you could develop some coding skills and get real jobs in the future.

Does anyone have the same idea?

Maybe playing CC helps you code better, and develops crucial skills?
Do you think so?

Also, I'd be very interested in knowing what happened to people who played CC when they were younger.
Thanks in advance for your opinions!

[Purrcival]

Sometimes, I think that maybe, because CC runs on an actual language (Lua), you could develop some coding skills and get real jobs in the future.

Does anyone have the same idea?

Maybe playing CC helps you code better, and develops crucial skills?
Do you think so?

Also, I'd be very interested in knowing what happened to people who played CC when they were younger.
Thanks in advance for your opinions!

Actually, coding gives experience, and that experience gotten me into a success on working on COSC. Ever since then, I've used my coding skills in full time projects!

[SamH]

I've started programming with ComputerCraft in (approximately) 2016 - 2017. Once I've made a couple Lua programs I've diced to practice other languages. Eventually I learnt a lot about computer science and studied it a high school and college. Later this year, I will be studying at University. When I've shown the college the the things I've made - they accepted as quick as they can.

I've not got a job yet, however I will be looking for one after University.

Computer science is more about the principles (the algorithms, etc ..) rather then the language you choose. Lua is a great language to implement these due to its simplicity (most of the time). If you understand the theory of why something works, then an employer is more likely to hire you.

[ComputerCrafter]

Thanks for your opinions!
I saw a few people saying CC helped them on the old forums too.
Thank you for answering my questions. :D

[Overflwn]

Actually yes, sort of I guess?

I started programming "seriously" with ComputerCraft and wasted my time with programming "operating systems" (though at least a bit more advanced by leveraging the rednet bug in the bios.lua to get rid of CraftOS). Then I went on learning other programming languages. I don't know which it was but either Java or Python first. Then I picked CS in high school and finished my CS bachelor's degree this year.

I like to think that CC was the factor that decided what career I wanted to pursue, and I kind of sticked with it. CC "OS programming" actually also sparked my interest in embedded, I even was in the switch modding scene for a short while and now I started a job as an embedded dev lol.

I'm still contemplating to start an attempt at doing a "CraftOS 2" clone myself, if any of you remember the teaser GIFs/images that dan posted years ago..

TL;DR: Yes, and I think that CC was a really great way to introduce myself to programming. So simple yet so many cool things you could do with it.

[theobsidianduke]

Hello! Just browsing and I saw this. I was really active on the ComputerCraft forums when I was younger, around 10 years old back in 2012. Roblox and ComputerCraft got me into programming at a really really young age, and now I have a computer science degree. I am doing entrepreneurship now. There was also another guy who went by oeed who was doing incredibly impressive work back then who also works in the field.

Absolutely prepares you for a career, but I wouldn't expect other people to value it as something important. I was so familiar with the CC terminal that I didn't even know it was based on Linux. Was quite a pleasant surprise when I used Linux for the first time.

If I could go back, I would try to learn how to transition from ComputerCraft to more traditional coding earlier on. However, learning rednet on CC is probably one of the most preparatory things I have ever done in my life. If you are curious whether it helps or not, I am a really good engineer now.

[Purrcival]

Hello! Just browsing and I saw this. I was really active on the ComputerCraft forums when I was younger, around 10 years old back in 2012. Roblox and ComputerCraft got me into programming at a really really young age, and now I have a computer science degree. I am doing entrepreneurship now. There was also another guy who went by oeed who was doing incredibly impressive work back then who also works in the field.

Absolutely prepares you for a career, but I wouldn't expect other people to value it as something important. I was so familiar with the CC terminal that I didn't even know it was based on Linux. Was quite a pleasant surprise when I used Linux for the first time.

If I could go back, I would try to learn how to transition from ComputerCraft to more traditional coding earlier on. However, learning rednet on CC is probably one of the most preparatory things I have ever done in my life. If you are curious whether it helps or not, I am a really good engineer now.

Roblox got me started in Lua a little but I gave up until I got fluent in programming YEARS later (which is now)

[osmarks]

I resent the implication that my work on CC is not an "actual job". Sure, I don't get paid for it and nobody uses it, but does most software which gets produced have a real application?

Anyway, while it is probably true that lots of people who like programming use(d) CC, it's hard to say whether they like programming generally and would have used something other than CC if it didn't exist.

[TamaMcGlinn]

For me, the answer is; probably, and hopefully it will continue to in future.

Probably, because making and then solving mazes in CC was one of my first activities related to programming, and I put the resulting depth-first-search generated mazes on my CV along with the lua code that generated them. I then did get a job, 2 years into my bachelors in CompSci, and I think part of the reason I got picked is because I had such a variety of different technologies, from raspberry pi programs in C++ and python, to javascript, bash, lua - all just a few little snippets, but it demonstrates the drive to program. I love it, and I really can't help it if an environment offers something automatable.

Mind you, this was 16 years ago. Now that I have children of my own, I wanted to teach them in a similar way. But I didn't want to go through the hassle of coding in an in-game terminal. So, I devised a program, originally running as a lua CC program, that fetches the instruction to do from a webserver hosted outside of Minecraft entirely. That lets me write a program on my local machine in whatever programming environment suits me, that just hosts the instruction for the turtle inside ComputerCraft. That has evolved over the years, to the point where I now offer a fully configured web-based IDE, automatically connected to a bot in a luanti (formerly minetest) server, also connected to via the web.

The point is that lua isn't a great programming language, especially for beginners. Ada is much stricter with its type-safety. And more to the point, an actual IDE has a debugger, git version control, not just syntax-highlighting but jump-to-definition, find references, refactoring tools etc.

If you want to try it out yourself, go to adabots.net - you can use the promo code TRIAL to get the first 3 months free. Have fun!