Minecraft Forums

Quote from King Korihor

Finally.... somebody with a clue.

Quote from deadscion

yeah right,,,, just a few more days until March and Minecraft still has no API, a world breaking new biome and a new world save config, but no API.

They promised but nobody has been working on it. They have been working on this other stuff instead, which could have waited.

This is not a good thing,,,,this is a bad name thing,,,,

Quote from King Korihor

I don't think you know what an API really is if you think getting unscrambled names from the source code is all you need to put in an API. Yes, I read the official announcement, and frankly I don't think you can pull much information out of that announcement other than the suggestion that perhaps Mojang is going to ask for some sort of non-disclosure agreement or at least some sort of developer agreement to get access to the API documentation, discussion forums, and other features that would relate directly to making "official" mods to the game.

Regardless, the API will by necessity have to be available to everybody using the game, if you have signed the agreement or not. Otherwise, the whole idea of an API is stupid as only modders who have signed the agreement would be able to use mods. That sort of defeats the purpose of the API. I assume that non-modders would like to be able to use mods in some capacity.

Also, I don't think you have a clue as to what ModLoader does if you think it isn't an API. Find out what the methods and objects are in ModLoader before you start to spout off any more drivel. If anything, the objects and methods in ModLoader are not just a good idea but would be essential as the base parts of a legitimate API. It wouldn't be complete, but it would be an awfully damn good start. If those items are not included in this upcoming API library, Jeb and Notch should seriously get their heads examined.

I'm not saying that the methods and objects being made "public" would be identical to ModLoader, but it would have to include at a bare minimum what ModLoader and a couple other API libraries currently supported in the modding community (and not Mojang a the moment) does and put into the official API.

Quote from King Korihor

The purpose of the API is not merely "access" to the source code, but rather to get hooks to add extensions to the software. In other words.... adding a "mod" to the game. Java is explicitly designed as a programming language to allow this, particularly with well designed object-based programming that has reasonable abstracted objects to be doing common things (like placing blocks and adding new behavior into the game).

This isn't an easy thing to accomplish, and will by design have to be done in little stages. At the moment, ModLoader allows you to hook into the recipe engine and hooks into other aspects of the game just like a proper API would be able to accomplish (and does the really cool trick like searching in a mods folder for multiple extensions as well). A few other things like hooks into the terrain generation algorithms and a few other things can be found there, and other API libraries are available from other mod developers which do a remarkable job of keeping that interface clean without having to actually to change software in the minecraft.jar file.

At least that is the goal. Some mod developers might find some stuff they want to do which goes beyond merely adding a new block but instead wants to change an aspect of the game on a more fundamental basis. If that happens, it is because the API library is incomplete. The pressure Jeb is facing here is that no matter how open the API library becomes, there will be some fairly substantial group complaining that the API library needs additional hooks for some new imagined feature they want to add. If it was just ModLoader, it wouldn't be enough.

The other awesome thing would be that a new version of the game could be released and with a proper API you wouldn't need to worry about that game update breaking the mod. If you are careful at the moment, some mods only need to have ModLoader update and don't need any additional recompiling. That makes for some boring mods at the moment though.

Quote from King Korihor

I keep hoping that the API at least uses many of the public methods of ModLoader, or even simply made ModLoader an official part of Minecraft. There are other API methods that would and should have to be made for more customization, but that would be an excellent start.

Quote from obsidianCore

as long as the up the item and block ID sprite limit il be a happy miner