up vote 6 down vote favorite

The title kind of stands for itself. I mean, you can make some pretty advanced things with redstone in Minecraft. When it comes to complicated stuff like making computers with redstone, would questions related to that be appropriate for EE?

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I'm not morally opposed, but 1) The first few people to ask should be prepared to be pretty thick-skinned. You're likely to see some push-back from "real" EE's. 2) You're not likely to find many redstone experts here atm so you'll probably get the best answers to questions that are abstracted to be about digital logic in general. – The Photon Feb 5 at 2:34
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To satisfy the "purists" it may be best to just indicate that you're using discrete logic gates and need help for "educational purposes". That should stop any weirdness close-votes. – AndrejaKo Feb 5 at 20:00
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As a side note, such logic design in the realm of VLSI or VHDL type work are both careers people go into, something you might want to think about as you move forward in life. – Kortuk♦ Feb 5 at 22:41
@Kortuk That's the main reason I'm learning logic gates in minecraft, I'm interested in the field of EE, and I figure that this is a good place to start. – JesusPlusPlus11 Feb 6 at 2:32
@JesusPlusPlus I wouldn't say it's a good place to start, but it depends on what you want with EE. Check this: electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/616/… and this: electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/53231/… – Camil Staps Feb 6 at 6:37
@CamilStaps Wow, those look like good resources to learn, thanks alot! – JesusPlusPlus11 Feb 6 at 11:58
If the question revolves around computer game, you'd be better off posting this question gaming.stackexchange. Afterwards, you could hang out in chat on EE.SE and challenge the engineers while providing a link to your gaming.SE question. – Nick Alexeev Feb 7 at 5:22
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@NickAlexeev Please read my answer, using redstone you are performing digital logic circuits. – Kortuk♦ Feb 10 at 17:23
Are questions about hydraulics or pneumatics relevant to EE? Both have their own logic gates available, both follow the same rules... but neither are EE. – John U Feb 13 at 13:41

2 Answers

up vote 10 down vote accepted

To somewhat echo ThePhoton(reflect his views?), I would say that as it goes towards questions about mechanics in minecraft that would go better on arqade(Did I spell that right?).

As you have digital logic questions, shoot away, you will have to be specific that you are doing gate by gate logic, not something more advanced like VHDL(although you could use VHDL and use the simplified output). This will probably met with some resistance, as it is not commonly done, but is often done in uni. But the mechanics of minecraft are very far off-topic here.

Not to be negative, I have seen many videos of things people have made in mincraft, and I am quite impressed, but that is not the focus of our site.

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Alright, thanks for a clear answer! – JesusPlusPlus11 Feb 5 at 20:30
+1 for abstracting it to the digital logic. – Joe Baker Feb 7 at 14:01
up vote -2 down vote

This is a good example of needing to make sure everyone understands your terms. The only "Redstone" I know is a rocket [PGM-11], and I've never heard of "Minecraft". Simply expecting people to know what those are is going to sound arrogant and get your question downvoted and closed fast.

The solution (if this is appropriate to this forum at all) is to make sure you define your context. Actually that's always the case, just that you can assume some domain-specific context here. For example, you don't need to define what a resistor or capacitor is here. If your question relies on people understanding whatever Redstone and Minecraft are, you'd better give a short introduction. And no, just a link won't do it. I'm not going to follow a link for what I think should be basic mandatory information in your question. If you give a quick introduction so we know basically what it's about, then you can follow with a link to details.

You want the thought process of someone who doesn't know these things to be "Oh, that's what he's talking about. I don't know anything about this so I'll just go on to the next question", as apposed to "What a arrogant prick! He thinks his obscure problem domain is so important that I'm supposed to know all about it or research it on my own? Not gonna happen. Downvoting and voting to close as off topic or not a question.".

The more off center of electrical engineering you get, the more you have to make sure you define whatever jargon you use. Of course if you need to do a lot of defining, then it's a good clue the whole question may be off topic.

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You have two down-votes, so I have no need to argue your "answer", as the down-votes have shown already how ridiculous it is. – JesusPlusPlus11 Feb 5 at 20:29
@JesusPlusPlus I see how it can come off as ridiculous, but he is just trying to explain how he sees the issue, we could all be nicer :) – Kortuk♦ Feb 7 at 0:01

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