Legoraft

Change your updates, change your versioning

Legoraft — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Mojang has changed their versioning system. This is something I didn't expect, but it is a great step forward. In a post about two years ago, I wrote</a> that Minecraft's versioning was getting worse with the new game drop system, making it so players and developers don't know what the latest major and minor versions are. Recently, Mojang announced in a post</a> on their site that they will change how Minecraft will be versioned. This is a great step towards better communication between players, developers and modders.</p>

The old</h2>
If you haven't read my previous post, here is a quick recap of the old situation. For years minecraft was versioned with a `1.x.x</code> version. The first x</code> showed the current major version, while the second was reserved for bug fixes. An example of this is 1.16.3</code>, where 1.16</code> shows that it is the nether update and the 3</code> shows that the` `item duplication bug</a> present in 1.16.2</code> has been fixed.</p>`
`This system was great for years, until Mojang started releasing game drops. These are smaller updates that get released three times a year. With this new system, they just started incrementing the bug fix number. This caused the 1.21</code> version to go all the way to 1.21.11</code>, the highest version number until now</a>. With this, players and modders couldn't easily see the difference between a bug fix and a major version, as both incremented the same number.</p>`

The new</h2> The new system uses the year of the release as the first number, and every consecutive game drop will increment the second number. The last number is reserved for bug fixes again. The first game drop of 2026 was 26.1</code>, with an immediate bugfix being 26.1.1</code>. This makes every version a lot more clear. We'll be able to communicate through version numbers in a clear manner again, as is common in the Minecraft community. This also makes modder's work easier, as we can release 26.1.x</code> releases again and assume that the mod will be supported in all bugfix releases.</p> A side-effect of this change is the snapshot numbering also changing. Snapshot numbering always was a little weird, but I liked it. In the old system, you had the year number, snapshot number and hotfix letter. 25w41a</code> is an example, where you know this was the 41st snapshot in 2025, and it was the first iteration. Now, snapshots are numbered with the new drop number and the snapshot number, so 26.1 Snapshot 1</code>. Even though I liked the weird letter/number combination, this system is way clearer and tells players what's happening, so this is a good change.</p> Conclusion</h2> Even though I didn't expect Mojang to change this, it is a somewhat obvious change. Their developers also need good communication and the messed up version number doesn't help internally. I'm very happy Mojang has decided to change their versioning system to make the whole Minecraft ecosystem easier to browse. The new drop system isn't a decision everyone supports, but we're seeing a lot of backend fixes and improvements with this, which makes me wonder if that was the point. Anyway, it's awesome a game that was €20 a few years ago is still receiving free updates and that the Java devs are fixing their technical debt.</p>


Alive internet
Legoraft — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000
I've seen a lot of posts going around about dead internet theory and a lot of other depressing stuff pertaining to AI. A video</a> about the indie web gave me a lot of hope again. The indie web is a place where people gather to relive the web as it was before social media, and it's very</em> alive.</p>
I've never really been able to figure out what I'd like to do with my blog. I love to write about things I'm doing or things I'm thinking about, but never really found the best way to do this. I've seen a lot of technical blogs that discuss very technical topics, always give you something to learn or think about and probably look great on a CV. I've seen the digital gardens, where people try to have a digital haven where they write and do what they like, but the articles always seemed so polished. This made me doubt my writing and how I'm doing things a lot. The indie web was a fun way to see that the web can also just be goofy, not everything has to be serious.</p>
I don't need a job in tech, nor do I have one. I love tech and writing and I just want a personal site on which I can have fun. The indie web truly looks like the place to do this, so I'm planning on rewriting my website yet again. This rewrite probably won't be permanent, because I love to rewrite my site. I also have a ton of ideas of things to add to my website to make it fun, but I'm starting small.</p>
I want to use the fun elements of the indie web, with my own goofy TUI design. The main idea behind my site is inspired by the digital gardens, though. I want to create a site where everything is living. Want to rearrange the full thing for the umpteenth time? Sure. Want to rewrite an old post, just because it doesn't feel right? Of course, just show that it's been updated. I want to create a site that can be fun to browse and to truly surf the web again. This site is my attempt to do this.</p>


Why versioning is important
Legoraft — Sun, 29 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This is a post I wrote in 2024, 2 years ago. Check out the update on this topic in my new post</a></p>
</blockquote>
Recently, Mojang has changed</a> how they release Minecraft. This was already apparent, but it's official now. This is mostly because they want to give players new features more often. It also changes their update cycle a lot, because they changed how they version the game.</p>
Before this change, Minecraft updates followed the Semver</a> specification (somewhat). Semver is short for semantic versioning. This system tries to avoid something called “dependency hell”, where all dependency versions and software versions clash and nothing works anymore (read more on their site</a>). This system requires a software version built up from three numbers: X.Y.Z</code>, where X is the major version, Y is the minor version and Z is the bug fix. In Minecraft, this system is loosely applied.</p>
Their current system is as follows: Every minor version is where Mojang implement a major version. A normal Minecraft update would be 1.21</code>, with 1.22</code> coming next. Every bug fix, performance optimization or small fix will be (mostly) backwards compatible and added to the third number. A bug fix in version 1.21</code> would be 1.21.1</code>.</p>
What's wrong</h2>
So, Minecraft doesn't really follow Semver, who cares? My first mod, Simple armor hud</a>, also doesn't follow it very well, and to be honest, it doesn't matter a lot. The problem has started with the new changes. The issues begin with the fact that the Semver major version never changes, which removes a lot of flexibility for versioning. This is why the last number is now reserved for feature drops and</em> bugfixes. If Mojang would truly follow Semver, they wouldn't remove backwards compatibility when they update the minor version (which is their major version).</p>
The most recent change in the update cycle of Minecraft causes the bugfix version to be completely neglected. They want to drop new (incompatible) updates on every minor version bump, while also still pushing bugfixes to this version. This means that 1.21.2</code> can be the version in which the bundles are added (24w39a</a>), or be a simple bugfix version that's backwards compatible. This removes a lot of the information you can get from a Semver spec version. Even though it's annoying, this isn't a big problem.</p>
The problem</h2>
The versioning won't hurt a lot of people. If you want to play Minecraft, open the most recent version and play it. Some people, like me, will be a bit annoyed by the fact that you can't get a lot of information from the Semver version. The biggest issues are for developers.</p>
Before this change, if you built a mod for 1.21</code>, you could (mostly) count on it working for every bugfix version after that. This is often called 1.21.x</code> support. After this change, mod developers will need to rewrite their mod a lot on every minor version. This means that mods probably won't support every minor version from now on. This can cause developers to drop out or players to get annoyed because mod development just isn't that fast.</p>
The biggest example of this is masa, he's the brain behind mods like litematica, minihud and tweakeroo. After this change by Mojang in versioning became apparent, he announced</a> that he'll stop developing his mods for newer versions. Mojang also has been a lot more radical with code changes, meaning that a rewrite sometimes isn't just adjusting a few variables, but needing to understand a whole new system.</p>
Mod development is slowing down for people who do this in their free time. I've also considered stopping releasing on every minor release, but I'll update my mods when I have the time. This can annoy some people, but please respect the time and effort mod developers put into their mods.</p>
Solutions</h2>
To be fair, I don't think that Mojang will change Minecrafts versioning system. The subset of people who have problems with their new feature drops is way too small to care about. Besides, Mojang has been giving its updates names for quite some time. This means that the usual “I play Minecraft 1.21</code>.” can be replaced by “I play the Tricky Trials update.” I just happen to like the version names. I do want to propose a versioning solution though.</p>
The simplest solution to bring back real bug fix versions would be to start using the major release number, so 1.21.1</code> turns into 21.0.1</code> if it was a bug fix version, and 21.1.0</code> if it was an extra feature drop. Mojang can also add tags to their version names, like 1.21.1-bug0</code> or something like that. These solutions are just quick fixes, and as I've said before, I don't think Mojang will change this.</p>
I just want to ask everyone who uses mods, to try to respect the developers. Minecraft is a huge game and the code can be quite complex sometimes. Just calmly wait for the updates of your favorite mods and don't harass any developers. Be grateful that they do most of this work for free and if you can, donate to them if they have a way to support them. I'm also just going to try to keep my mods as up-to-date as possible. Enjoy the fact that we are able to mod the java version of the game, because even that isn't a given anymore</a>.</p>