Introduction to APIs

API is an acronym for Application Programming Interface. An API helps to control how various software components are used. As mentioned in the previous chapter, CraftBukkit includes the Minecraft code in a form that is easier for developers to utilize in creating plugins. CraftBukkit has a lot of code that we do not need to access for creating plugins. It also includes code that we should not use as it could cause the server to become unstable. Bukkit provides us with the classes that we can use to properly modify the game. Basically, Bukkit acts as a bridge between our plugin and the CraftBukkit server. The Bukkit team adds new classes, methods, and so on, to the API as new features develop in Minecraft, but the preexisting code rarely changes. This ensures that our Bukkit plugins will still function correctly months or even years from now. Even though new versions of Minecraft/CraftBukkit are being released. For example, if Minecraft were to change how an entity's...