We've worked a lot on the Typescript/JavaScript APIs available for Bedrock so most content on Bedrock platforms (console, mobile, etc) is heavily script-based.

It will always be more limited that Java modding but is catching up in large areas of functionality.

Amazing seeing what people are making in Bedrock running on old Android phones, Switch, and company.

I remember when the c++ edition came out, but have not really followed since then.

Are all of the servers/mods still written in Java and it was just the desktop client that was rewritten in c++? Or is there a division between Java mods and c++ mods?

Java edition is night and day different.

Take the pack I'm re-playing at the moment, Compact Claustrophobia.

Even the opening moments of that pack are nothing related to the Minecraft game you can buy. Scraping materials from the bare walls? Not a thing in Minecraft, but the mod adds that because otherwise how are we going to make even a block of dirt. Oh right yeah, no dirt, we start inside an unbreakable [as far as we know] object and we have to burrow deeper and deeper into recursively defined Compact Machines, none of which exists in the Minecraft game. Your character in Compact Claustrophobia needs their own faeces to survive - if you've read "The Martian" you know how that goes. Base Minecraft of course does not have poop, so they add that.

To make all this happen requires a lot of reverse engineering. Are Microsoft doing everything they can to stop it? Not at all. But they're also not some benevolent entity adding hooks left and right for the modifications.

At the cost of inner-platform-effecting all the game code. Long-time software engineers know all about the inner platform effect - if not, see [1]. Instead of writing directly what you want, something like:

new Block("mymod:mystone").setShape(Shapes.CUBE).setTexture("mymod:stone_texture").setStepSound(Sounds.STEP_ON_STONE)...

you now have to do some of this inline (the part that can't be customized in data packs):

new Block("mymod:mystone").setStepSound(Sounds.STEP_ON_STONE)...

but the rest is looked up across 5 different cross-referenced JSON files full of magic values with no autocomplete or syntax highlighting. Start with an indirection layer in assets/mymod/blockstates/mystone.json: [2]

{"variants": {"": {"model": "mystone"}}}

then of course you have to actually specify how to display the block: [3]

{"parent": "minecraft:block/cube_all", "textures": {"all": "fabric-docs-reference:block/steel_block"}}

(you see that? there are inheritance and variables in Minecraft's ad-hoc JSON language)

You need a second file to specify how to display the item when it's held in your hand. Usually it's similar boilerplate. But have a look at the abomination that is "item property overrides" [4] [5] as an example of inner-platforming. Instead of render(is_cast ? cast_model : uncast_model); there's this whole infrastructure of a registry of item property predicates written in Java which can then be referenced in JSON to select a different model file under specific conditions.

[1] https://thedailywtf.com/articles/the_inner-platform_effect

[2] https://docs.minecraftforge.net/en/1.12.x/models/blockstates...

[3] https://docs.fabricmc.net/develop/data-generation/block-mode...

[4] https://docs.minecraftforge.net/en/1.12.x/models/overrides/

[5] https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Tutorials/Models#Example:_...

Whats the point of the obfuscation in the first place, if they offer mappings to deobfuscate it?

> Bedrock might be more popular, but I think there is a large community with absolutely zero interest in ever moving away from Java.

Yes, exactly. It seems the demographic for Bedrock tends towards kids because it's supported on tablets. IME the demographic for Java is either older kids or adults or people with interest in modpacks, which is a lot of people. All the major YouTubers who have run worlds for challenges for years are all on Java.

Whenever someone in my group asks to play some MC, there's no "Bedrock or Java?" question, it's just Java every time.

The only major thing Bedrock has right now that Java doesn't is the new stock shaders, but I assume that is coming to Java soon.

The kids all seem to use tablets or windows with bedrock though, my own are the odd ones out with Java on Linux.

Distant Horizons is awesome. Too bad my computer really does not agree :P

Tbh bedrock natively supports massive render distances. Not as far as distant horizons but way way further than Java edition.

Note that you can play Minecraft Java on Android with PojavLauncher: https://github.com/PojavLauncherTeam/PojavLauncher

Although I see now that the project is archived, not sure the story behind that.

Minecraft itself is just a mod on 1.7.10, the One True Release.

The performance is nice, but the advanced modding scene is non-existent. In java a mod author can do just about anything they can imagine and write code for. Somehow i doubt we will ever see dimensional doors as a bedrock mod.

I have the opposite experience, unfortunately. It's not a perfect comparison, but my base M1 MacBook Pro (8GB RAM) gets consistently solid performance out of Java edition, but my M3 iPad Air (also 8GB RAM, but better chip) drops frames constantly in Bedrock.