55 lines
2.6 KiB
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55 lines
2.6 KiB
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.. image:: python-logo.png
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:alt: Python logo
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:align: right
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Technical Background
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=====================
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This page provides an inside view of how Miney works.
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Miney's basic idea is, to use `Minetest <https://www.minetest.net/>`_ with `Python <https://www.python.org/>`_.
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Minetest's main programming language (besides C++) is `Lua <https://www.lua.org/>`_ and it provides an mighty Lua-API for mod programming.
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But Lua isn't the ideal programming language to start programming and mod programming isn't fun,
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if you just want to play around with a sandbox.
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So we need something like an interface that is accessible by Python.
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The interface
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------------------------------
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For this we've written the `Mineysocket <https://github.com/miney-py/mineysocket>`_ mod as a regular Lua mod.
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This mod opens a network port and receives JSON encoded commands.
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The most important command is the "lua" command, where it just executes the received Lua code and
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sends any return value back.
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Miney is using this lua command to execute Lua code inside Minetest.
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.. note::
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**And you can use Miney without knowing any Lua or even seeing a single line of Lua code.**
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Mineysocket, Windows and the Miney distribution
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----------------------------------------------------
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Python is the language with batteries included and it ships with a very complete library for nearly everything.
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In contrast Lua has the batteries explicitly excluded, so there are nearly no libraries and it misses also a
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network library.
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So we need a Lua extension for networking, thats `luasocket <https://github.com/diegonehab/luasocket>`_.
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And an extension for JSON, thats `lua-cjson <https://luarocks.org/modules/openresty/lua-cjson>`_
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Under Linux this should be no big deal, just install these packages (most distributions provide them) and you are ready to go.
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Windows
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^^^^^^^^^^^^
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It isn't that easy for Minetest on Windows. The Minetest binary's where compiled with Visual Studio and the extension
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has to be linked against minetest also with the same version of Visual Studio.
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So the best way under windows is, to compile Minetest and the Lua extensions by yourself with the same Visual Studio.
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And when we already do this, why not replace Lua with `lua-jit <https://luajit.org/>`_ for more speed?
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And when we've done all this, why not also bundle a actual python interpreter? And why not preinstall Miney in this
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interpreter? Now it would be nice to have a comfortable `launcher <https://github.com/miney-py/launcher>`_.
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We've done all this for windows and we call it `Miney Distibution <https://github.com/miney-py/miney_distribution/releases>`_.
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