New modder questions

[Jerx99]

Hey, just started messing about with the making of a Minecraft mod. I have been playing since early alpha and jumped on the mod-train in about 1.2.5, starting with Tekkit and moving on to FTB as soon as it released.

I am a fairly experienced programmer and soon to be university graduate, so I have the general knowledge of "backbone" stuff... My questions are more specific to minecraft modding:

1: What is the specific reason I should compile for Java 6 and not Java 7? (or rather, what's holding people from using Java 7 - I suspect Apple products, but can't be sure).

2: Where do modders hang out? I see a lot of discussions on mods on this forum, but not much about making them.

3: Even though I've pretty much decided to go with Forge, I'm curious... Are there any options out there? Are there any upsides to making a mod independent of Forge or another API?


That's all I can think of right now, if you have any other tips, feel free to share... Otherwise I hope I'll see you sometime during the summer, with an alpha version ready to crash your games!

 

[Not_Steve]

2) most modders hang out on Irc so if you need to contact them that's the place.

 

[Mevansuto]

TBH Making your mod incompatible with forge is a death sentence. Right now I'd say I'd never use it.

 

[Pokefenn]

Java 6 is preferable, because of people who use Macs.

Usually modders are on IRC, not hard to find people, in their specific mod channels, and there is #minecraftforge for forge matters.

You can make a FML plugin... and make it not require forge, but more or less, if you don't support them, you're mod is not gonna be compatible with anything, and most people won't use it