How I start my Java developer career from Minecraft mods
Introduction
Hi I am Rere, formerly as Smootheez. Here, I will tell you about my journey as Minecraft mod developer that has beed reaching nearly 190.000 downloads accross all project and now trying to expand my career as Java Developer.
Where I Began
The story begin 2–3 years ago when I just finished my highschool when I just a normal Minecraft player — casual player, nothing technical. The most technical thing I do is modifying resourcepack and I’m doing it since I’m in middle school. But there is nothing special about it — I don’t understand what’s going on, I just copying someone else’s resourcepack, “tear” them up, take what I like, and drop things I don’t like.
But, here what you should know about me. I’m a curious person, I would never really accepting something that works, I will wonder how people make it or how do they do it. Because of my curiosity I don’t wanna stuck just modifying someone else’s works. So I starting to create my own resourcepack and my first resourcepack was Smoothee’s Elytra Dragon nothing is fancy here just modifying one item texture in the game in this case is Elytra to be be look like a dragon wings.
Surprisingly, people also like my works — it doesn’t get that much download actually. As I’m making this article, I only get around 4.000 downloads accross Modrinth and Curseforge.
That time, I’m still casual player — but then I got another idea to make another resourcepack and the second resourcepack I made is Rgb Animated Xp Bar this is also simple Minecraft resourcepack. I think you guys already tell it what it does from its name. It’s basically resourcepack to make your Xp Bar animated inspired by CrisXolt from his Minecraft Bedrock resourcepack. Since that time no one else create that kind of thing, so I publish it to Curseforge then later on I publish it on Modrinth.
Surprisingly again, people also like my new works and as I’m creating this article it reached around 14.000 downloads.
Bored Moment
I love Minecraft it’s the best game I ever had even tho back then I crack it (poor moment). Because here I can throw all of my imagination, building, thinkering, and here is the interesting part for me — modding.
As this chapter said “Bored Moment” things is get bored because resourcepack is not enough to spill all of my creativity in my brain. Same goes as how I start making resourcepack, in modding I’m not straight away make my own mod — instead i orchestrate someone else’s mods. Yup creating modpack but for my own use until my curiosity comes out again. As you can guess, I started to create my own mod. But its not easy because I got to learn Java first in order to create my own mod.
Learning Programming
Here is the hardest part when creating mod I got to learn programming, in this case Java which is one of the most verbose programming language in the world. But here is the funny part — I heard someone said that Java is one of the easiest programming language.
Long story short, I managed to understand Java fundamental then begin to create my first mod — ****the path is not straightforward. I must failed multiple times, because I have to adapt with java build tool script in this case is gradle. Which is very strange for me. After some quite of times — trial and error I managed to setup my project completely and finally launch my Minecraft in development environment.
After managing my Minecraft project, the first mod idea doesn’t come straight to my brain as I’m success creating the setup project for my mod. I even abandon it for some times.
First Mod
This is where my seed developer thinking grow — which is solve a problem.
I saw QoL differences between Minecraft BE and Minecraft JE. In BE we can stop flight while using elytra in mid air while in JE?
So it comes idea with me “Why don’t JE have the same feature?”. From that, I begin open my text code editor and start writing my first mod.
BE is stands for Bedrock Edition while JE is for Java Edition. Two different internal Minecraft ecosystem
Now the second problem is coming… writing code for Minecraft mod is not as simply as it looks. You must fight with Mojang’s codebase which is quite mess up. For me, as new developer that doesn’t really know how to code it feels like hell. Took me a days or a week to just build a simple thing feature.
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Maybe you wondering “Why not using AI to speed up development?” well that time AI is not helping too much. So I got to do my own research, look into someone else’s codebase as inspiration and clue how should I code the mod. Even now, AI doesn’t help so much in Minecraft development in my expirience — except you ask AI for complex algorithm for your mod.
After from that battlefield I finally succeed create my first mod called Elytra Control. I didn’t expect too much for it since it’s my first mod and the codebase is very messed up. Unexpectedly it got some downloads 1, 10, 100, 500, 1.000? it’s a big dopamine hit for me, since I’m not that serious about the mod I’m just curious person who create a mod and wanted to share it with people.
I wasn’t stop there then I begin creating another mod again, again, and again. Now I have a few mods and has reach nearly 190.000 downloads accross porject. Even has reached around 200.000 downloads from all works I ever made.
Programming World
From my experience building Minecraft mod using Java, my curiosity increased in programming world. Leading me to web development as Backend developer using Spring Boot as main framework while learning.
There is also part why I can call Minecraft codebase is a mess. When exploring Java further, I tried a library from google and it feels soo good that makes me think programming is not too hard if you can code it clean. So other developer won’t have a nightmare reading your code.
Also remember I said there is someone have argument “Java is one of the easiest language in the world”? I could say it’s a missleading. Because when I’m exploring programming world, I also try any other programming language, such Javascript and it much simpler and easier to deal with. Also Python, even though I never really code in Python — but just looking at its syntax I could tell that it’s easier than Java which is very verbose and strict about typing code.
Summary
That’s my story how I trying to start my career as Java developer. From a just a kid that plays Minecraft almost everyday then start touching programming just to fulfill his wish to have a feature that doesn’t exists in the game. Now “play around” in programming world with Java and try to build career with it.
To be honest I never expect one of my life path is on programming. Especially in Minecraft modding I never expect to be among other mod creators. My mods only got 190.000 downloads but that’s combination from all of my mods. That’s not much but I’m proud of myself if my works give at least small benefit to all Minecraft’s player in the world.
Thanks if you read it till the end.
Come visit my GitHub:
My Modrinth and Curseforge:
Donate me if you wish to support my works:
