Things have been busy for the Sponge team recently; with both Project Leads gone for personal reasons, and staff changes. @blood will continue to be gone for the next few weeks to tend to his family and his new child! However @sk89q has recently returned.
Sponge Status
Over the past week, there have been a few changes within the Sponge staff. The teams are now much more final, and jobs are being properly delegated for development. I personally (@Me4502), have been discussing a Tile Entity API with other team members, and wrote a scheduler API. The estimated date of API release is still slated at November, and we are confident that we can reach it.
Besides the API, our new team member @modwizcode has been working on the implementation of our current API that will be useful for developers to test their code once the API is released.
Forge
We are still waiting on Forge for 1.8, and thanks to LexManos for his continued efforts. If you want to support him, you can donate to him at either his PayPal or Patreon. Also check out the other people who are actively supporting Forge updating for 1.8.
New Website
Thanks to Antariano, we now have a sexy new frontpage! Head on over to http://spongepowered.org and tell us how you feel about it.
If you see any issues, make sure to report them on the issue tracker tagged with the website. We will have a public repo up soon for making changes to the website code.
Thatās all for this week, it may not seem like a lot has actually been done towards the finished server, but a lot of internal progress is being made.
##MERGING FROM @Zidaneās post below:
###Couple of things forgotten but relevant to add
As some of you may or may not know, I lead the development side of Sponge and over the weekend I spent the majority of the time I had to make some sweeping changes across the project. Iāll list some various things here:
###Establishing a team
Iāve been contacting developers that have been with us since the beginning to finally delegate out roles. This has led to the formation of the core development team (my team members) and a host of contributors.
Currently, my team members are: @kitskub @progwml6 @modwizcode @Kobata @me4502 @mumfrey @sk89q @turt2live (The mean green āfirst line of PR defenseā machine)
Iāve do not have a full image yet of who will all be acknowledged as contributors. Iām also not going to define what I consider the ārequirementsā of becoming a contributor or core developer. Basically, Iāll call you if I need you.
Iāve also not fully went through all the dev applications past an initial lookover. Some of you may have gotten an email from @DarkArcana which was part of this process. I plan to finish making final decisions on those soon.
If you feel you are up to becoming part of Sponge development, you can still apply here:
I will give priority to applications I already have so bear that in mind before nagging me about your app :P.
###Finishing our PR requirements
Iāve been working with turt2live and am happy to say that our PR process is, for the most part, finalized. turt demoed it last night (Iām sure a few of you āgot the messageā) and so far I like what I see. Weāll tweak it as time marches forward but expect a much quicker PR turnaround (submission to pull) in the future.
###Entity Component System
As a side note, I am still wanting to proceed forward with component-style API but it has no set target for release. Iāve brought on @Zerot and @gratimax to focus solely on GitHub - SpongePowered/Sponge-ECS: Sponge-ECS is a modification of Artemis, an Entity Component System, for use with the Sponge Modding Platform (with assistance by me whenever needed). Iāll leave discussion of it up to them to perform in other threads (direct questions to them as needed).
###API Initial Release
This is a question I keep getting from everyone across the board.
####AT THIS TIME WE ARE STILL ON TRACK FOR AN API DEMO SOMETIME IN NOVEMBER
What does this mean? It means that developers will be able to create projects that depend on SpongeAPI and get a feel for how the API will be laid out. For the very brave, you will be able to run Sponge (as a ārun configurationā) in your favorite IDE and start to see various API functions work (currently setting a block or broadcasting a message works).
####WHILE THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE API DEMO MAY RUN ON 1.7.10 FORGE IT IS NOT OUR TARGET FOR FIRST RELEASE. 1.8.x FORGE IS OUR TARGET
As for Forge and Minecraft 1.8, this has been the biggest update in the history of the game. As such, it has taken longer for LexManos and his team to get it shipped out the door. We ask everyone for patience as all parties involved are working as hard and as fast as they can. We promise it will be worth it :).