Yes, that's what most people tend to use for programming these days.
Although I personally have never enjoyed it as much as the famous Redpower 2 mod, which had computers as well, with 6502 assembler and Forth. It was less forgiving than Lua, but somehow more fitting the genre (of construction set, that is); programming in Lua feels almost like you could program the thing in Java and put it in a new block.
I also liked the logic gates and other stuff that came with RP2, I think that's good for kids to play with as well. Too bad Eloraam stopped developing RP2, it was the best mod for Minecraft ever.
(Also, CC computers seem to reset on world reload, while RP2 computers were persistent. They are also dirt cheap compared to RP2, and their runtime behavior is not well specified. I just kinda feel that CC computers break the fourth wall of the virtual world, in several different ways..)
I have similar preferences to you, and RedPower is one of the mods I enjoyed the most. Fortunately, Eloraam has recently started working on RedPower again.
Ah yes I miss Redpower. Was a _very_ polished mod which felt less magic (in a good way) when playing.
About that fourth wall. I know some who take this as a very strange kind of opportunity. For instance:
- SQL databases hooked up to sorting contraptions to manage inventory.
- Arduino/rpi to receive input/output from the game over the HTTP API. Think - controling doors with physical buttons, routing in game player detectors to LEDs. Lots of opportunities here.
The main advantage of computer craft is turtles, programmable robots. You can automate all sorts of things in the game and it's fun. Automating things with redpower is possible, but takes massive complicated contraptions and great feats of engineering.
One was used for mining, other for paving, and third had attached two 7x5x7 trailers, one was mobile house with basic facilities and the other was mobile Thaumcraft 2 lab.
But most things can be automated quite easily with frames, and I find it more intuitive - you just look at it and see what it does when it's done.
I also later designed a fully programmable factory using RP2, Buildcraft crafting table and a conveyor belt.
I am glad to hear that Eloraam started working on RP again. I hope I will be able to design von Neumann machine in RP, eventually (that's my ultimate goal, but there are several blocks still missing in RP, so it's not yet doable). At the very least, next time I play I want to have a full base on a moving platform (may be of several independent "trucks"), so I could easily move all stuff I have somewhere else in the world. :-)
Although I personally have never enjoyed it as much as the famous Redpower 2 mod, which had computers as well, with 6502 assembler and Forth. It was less forgiving than Lua, but somehow more fitting the genre (of construction set, that is); programming in Lua feels almost like you could program the thing in Java and put it in a new block.
I also liked the logic gates and other stuff that came with RP2, I think that's good for kids to play with as well. Too bad Eloraam stopped developing RP2, it was the best mod for Minecraft ever.
(Also, CC computers seem to reset on world reload, while RP2 computers were persistent. They are also dirt cheap compared to RP2, and their runtime behavior is not well specified. I just kinda feel that CC computers break the fourth wall of the virtual world, in several different ways..)