Ok, I am curious about the following things. Lets first be clear, I am a 100% supporter of this project and would like to see it succeed and I think it has the dev and support community to succeed. The issue is that namely Spigot will have a 1.8 bukkit API build very soon, I assume they will be keeping up with MC for the near future. Also, Glowstone is coming along quite nicely which when complete will be a from scratch server that implements the Bukkit API.
Now as of right now I would say every minecraft plugin developer is more comfortable with the bukkit API than is with the sponge API. I know that the sponge API is better than the bukkit API but it is going to take a lot more than claiming that this API is better to get developers to start using this one instead. So what are the incentives for developers to move to the Sponge API? Why should they leave the platform they know and love and have been using for the past few years for something new and unknown?
To expand, I haven’t seen anything about Spigot being able to release builds yet. Meaning they will still be using the patching system. I would think being on such shaky ground as to have to use a system of patches on the old build is a bit off putting for developers and server-owners.
And as for Glowstone, like many other projects, it is very far from a working,stable release. Just hop on their test server to see how much work is left.
Spigot 1.8 is out and they’re not using binary patches anymore and they’re updating bukkit also. So now everyone can easily have a nice, bukkit compatible 1.8 server and the Sponge devs can work on Sponge without people constantly asking for a release.
@NoidEXE is right, although currently you need to compile the builds yourself. Spigot now offers a jar that will build Bukkit and Spigot API and server jars. But they’re not doing the patcher thing as far as I can tell. The biggest benefit Spigot has over Sponge so far is that it’s fully functional and the plugins we’ve used already work. I’ve been testing it a bit on a server and it seems to work fine so far.
well to bring back the discussion to the main subject, i can say a lot of server owner are hopping and waiting for sponge, and you could consider also the wast amount of plugin dev that already said that they will port to sponge, what another api would do without those plugin ?
personnally i’ll still wait on sponge for a little more
also, did you read the spigot post ? lot of plugins are having a hard time crashing and bug, i would prefer using sponge with all brand new plugins and re-vamped version, at least we would be sure that everything is up to date
I mean damn, spigit seems to really have it together right now… Any issues they are having now I am sure will be fixed in the near future. I will certainly be using them for my server in the near future…
The recent Spigot 1.8 release is awesome, but has issues because of the update to the Guava library iirc. Some plugins can’t handle it and will need to be updated for full 1.8 compatibility (and they have had a go at a few big ones already). It’s a long way from a “Recommended Build” or whatever you want to call a formal release candidate.
The main drawback is the JDK-Git build system. Pro server owners and Devs will have no problems, others will probably struggle, it’s a long way from DL and drop in.
I’m still keen to see Sponge, at least in part because of native Forge compatibility. It would be helpful if some Developers more in-the-know would give a breakdown of how Sponge API can/should overcome some troubles and limitations that cannot readily be overcome in CraftBukkit/Spigot. It would also be very helpful for the nascent Sponge Wiki too…
@SpaceManiac has said that Glowstone will be implementing the Sponge API - the project is just focused on implementing vanilla features for the time being.
(Sorry for the necro, replied without thinking :D)
