Algorithm implementation in Minecraft

[RCoder01]

I was able to code an implementation of the sieve of Eratosthenes in Minecraft commands, sort of as a joke. It does genuinely work though, and I believe it also follows the rules of this project. I was wondering if this would be allowed to be uploaded to the project given the nature of how unconventional it is compared to a 'normal' programming language, even many esoteric languages. The compiler/interpreter is quite large and resource intensive because it's a video game not meant only to be a fairly basic programming language.

All the files required to duplicate the program would only be about 15 KB, so it's not like you would have to upload the entirety of Minecraft to the project, but a copy of the game would be required to run the program. I'm not too familiar with docker, but I would be surprised if it was possible to configure it to run a Minecraft command program, so if that's a deal breaker, that's fair. (And if it is possible, I will certainly need help making it)

I have genuinely tried to make my implementation as fast as I can (without essentially hardcoding values), and it takes a bit over 3 mins to run one iteration up to 1,000,000 on my computer (although it probably could be brought down below 3 mins with some configuration testing; also takes 13 seconds for up to 100,000 and ~.8 seconds for 10,000), so obviously it isn't practical and won't be winning any speed awards (if that wasn't already clear), but I still think it would be an interesting addition to this project.

[rbergen]

Generally speaking, we don't add solutions that can't be included in the automated benchmark reporting, certainly if alternatives are available that can be. Examples of this are:

• A solution in Lua Roblox (Lua Roblox #50), which was later converted to a "plain Lua" solution (Lua Roblox is commercially licensed and doesn't run in Docker, plain Lua is freeware and works in Docker)
• A solution that conceptually started as a MATLAB solution (added Octave implementation #72), that ended up being merged as an Octave solution (MATLAB is commercially licensed, Octave is freeware)
• A version of a COBOL solution targeting IBM mainframes (results from IBM compiler: #333), that ended up being a show and tell post (we had a COBOL solution that runs in the benchmark context but no hardware running z/OS)
• A solution in Oracle PL/SQL (Added implementation in Oracle PLSQL #462), which we didn't merge (Oracle is commercially licensed, and other freeware SQL dialects were already included)
• A solution in APL (APL solution #549) that requires Dyalog to run; the PR for it was closed by the author (I'd still love to add the language). Dyalog is commercially licensed and a freeware APL implementation (GNU APL) is available, but the solution would require adaptations to work on it.

As you can tell from these examples, the most common reason for not including solution is not technical, but related to licensing. I would think that this would actually also be the main hurdle concerning Minecraft.

All that said, as far as I know there is no freeware alternative available for Minecraft and we do have one solution in place without a Dockerfile (written in Delphi). The best thing to do may be to put a PR together, so we can see if and in what form we can add your Minecraft implementation to the project.
There is one important thing that will apply, which is that we don't merge binary files. This means that the solution would need to consist of the text-based source code and whatever instructions need to be followed to get that to run.

[RCoder01]

I'm pretty confident there are no legal freeware alternatives of Minecraft, but looking into it further, it should be possible to run my program on just the server version of the game. Although I'm nowhere near an expert in licensing, it seems to me that downloading and using the server JAR from this page only requires agreeing to the EULA and privacy policy, which allows its non-commerical use (which I think this project falls under).

With the server version, I think it would be possible to make a shell or python script to automate running the server and the program and run that from the Dockerfile, but I have no idea how to go about doing that.
Also, the only files consisting my program are .json, .mcmeta, and .mcfunction, all of which are text files so that shouldn't be an issue. The Minecraft server JAR itself is binary, but that should be downloaded from Minecraft directly per the EULA, not distributed through this project.

[rbergen]

I look forward to seeing the PR for this. I suggest we start with the source code as you have it, and just take it from there.

[minecraftchest1]

May you share a link to the repro with the implementation? I am interested in seeing how it works. I may also be able to get it somewhat automated.

[rbergen]

Just opened RCoder01#1.

Note that when opening the PR on the main repo, you'll most likely have to sync your fork with the current state of it. This will be needed to get CI to succeed.

[RCoder01]

@rbergen I just opened #756.

[rbergen]

@RCoder01 Yes, reviewed and approved. I've asked @marghidanu to perform the second review, after which we can merge.

[rbergen]

Merged!

@RCoder01 Thank you for putting this together!

[RCoder01]

Thank you @rbergen for all the automation help!