The idea for a Mod/Plugin API has been around Mojang for a while, since beta even, and they have even assembled a team and posted some code. Being almost a year now, why have they not released it yet?
This is rooted in the fact that this will be a plugin system instead of a mod system. This means that the downloaded plugin is placed in your Minecraft folder to run instead of overwriting files in the JAR. Plugins are great because they very rarely have conflicts with each other. However they do not have free reign to change everything because they do not have direct source code access.
In other words, plugins can only be as good as the API. The API has not been released because API's are generally hard to change after they have been released. Consequently, Mojang does not want to release the API until it is good enough to replace Forge, Bukkit and other popular APIs, which it is designed to do.
Also some parts of the projected Plugin API package have leaked into MC already, like the new texture packs, and the new launcher going live in 1.6. Mojang is trying to release what they can while making the API the best it can be, so please do not hound them, they are trying to help the community.
We can either wait and have potentially better mods or have it now and more limited mods.
So the answer is: the API will be released when Mojang is comfortable with the capabilities it provides. But in the meantime they will release other features to prepare the community.
More posts on the Plugin API are probably in the future, so stay tuned.
Source: Minecon 2012
This is rooted in the fact that this will be a plugin system instead of a mod system. This means that the downloaded plugin is placed in your Minecraft folder to run instead of overwriting files in the JAR. Plugins are great because they very rarely have conflicts with each other. However they do not have free reign to change everything because they do not have direct source code access.
In other words, plugins can only be as good as the API. The API has not been released because API's are generally hard to change after they have been released. Consequently, Mojang does not want to release the API until it is good enough to replace Forge, Bukkit and other popular APIs, which it is designed to do.
Also some parts of the projected Plugin API package have leaked into MC already, like the new texture packs, and the new launcher going live in 1.6. Mojang is trying to release what they can while making the API the best it can be, so please do not hound them, they are trying to help the community.
We can either wait and have potentially better mods or have it now and more limited mods.
So the answer is: the API will be released when Mojang is comfortable with the capabilities it provides. But in the meantime they will release other features to prepare the community.
More posts on the Plugin API are probably in the future, so stay tuned.
Source: Minecon 2012