'Minecraft' 1.8 Update Gets 2 More Snapshots 14w34d, 14w34c As New 'Minecraft' Mod Teaches Coding Skills

Coders Rest In The Office Of Swedish Company Mojang In Stockholm — Coders rest in the Mojang company office in Stockholm January 21, 2013. A pool table, a pinball machine, board games and Lego dot the offices of Mojang, the small Swedish company behind the wildly popular Minecraft video game, and one of its founders is wearing a tuxedo and purple tie on a recent "formal Friday". The atmosphere reflects the independent spirit that has contributed to the raw identity of the game that has just sold 20 million copies. The founders want to keep it that way. Mojang, the Swedish word for gadget, has so far resisted selling to a bigger player or listing on the stock market even though that could mean monster payoffs for the 25-person staff and funding to expand dramatically its games. Picture taken January 21, 2013. Reuters/Ints Kalnins

Mojang has stated to fans that it will be releasing the last few batches of snapshots for the "Minecraft 1.8 Update" in time for a pre-release sometime this week.

But as last-minute releases, the developers have released two more snapshots, Snapshot 14w34c and 14w34d, which bring bug fixes and fixes for crashes.

The fixes are a pretty short list, which could be a hint that the pre-release will be well underway as scheduled.

As listed on the official Mojang website, here are the fixes for Snapshot 14w34c:

- Speeding up baby animal growth does not consume growth/breeding item

- Ender dragon experience drops are not affected by doMobLoot gamerule

- Item and XP drops are sucked towards the player's feet instead of their chest/torso

- Endermites spawn from thrown ender pearls even when doMobSpawning gamerule is false

- Creative Inventory screen causes fps drop

- Sponge absorbing bug

- Baby villagers display blocks on their head in the wrong location

- XPOrbs attracted to spectators

- Ladder, torch and redstone torch texture are darker.

- clone, fill, setblock leaving behind ghost entities

While these are the bugs found and fixed with Snapshot 14w34d:

- OS X: Ctrl modifier key instead of Cmd

- Ender Pearls and Beds

- Parts of enchanted Leather Armor when held don't Shimmer

- MobSpawner "MaximumNearbyEntity" Tag only has maximum range of 4 above and 4 below

- Chickens will not follow Melon seeds, Pumpkin seeds, or Nether Wart

- "Sprinting" While flying

- Slimes appear for 1/2 a second in Peacefull

- Race condition in linux fullscreen toggle

- Mobs do not spawn at the heights 16, 32, 48, 64, 80... (Multiples of 16)

- Bone meal used up when applying to fully grown crops

- Some items are missing pixels in 3D models

Apart from the latest "Minecraft" update, those who have been immersed in the game for quite a while would be happy to know that another skill may be borne from playing this game--coding skills.

Wired has gotten an exclusive interview with Stephen Foster, co-founder of ThoughtSTEM, the company responsible for the upcoming LearnToMod module that will debut on "Minecraft" in October.

According to the source, LearnToMod is a mod that aims to help kids learn how to write the code to create their own mods. One example of this lesson involves teaching kids to write a code for a special bow that can shoot arrows that will create portals between locations in the game.

"Kids are already spending ridiculous amounts of hours on 'Minecraft,'" Foster said to Wired. "So we thought this would be a good way to help them learn skills."

Currently, LearnToMod is being offered to 150 students as a test run, in the hopes of it becoming a possible way to make use of "Minecraft's" success towards pulling more kids into the art of computer programming.

The Guardian adds that LearnToMod will hit stores at the price of $30--a good trade-off for getting your kids to learn more than just gaming with "Minecraft."