Minecraft 1.6 & 1.7 - What to expect?

So I'm sitting here wondering about the chaos Minecraft 1.6 will bring to servers, and I have a few questions:
[1] Will every single plugin break in 1.6 due to the rearranged code in minecraft?
[2] Will every single plugin have to be redone when minecraft 1.7 comes out?
and finally...
[3] Rumors of the 'Mod API' coming out very soon, but what are the capabilities of it?

Question [3] is what I really want to know.

 

I doubt the Mod API will beat bukkit, it wont convince me at all. It will probally have a lighter footprint as the code is native, and break very less with updates. We'll have to wait and see. I can't answer the rest as I dont know.

 

1. probably not. some will, some wont, like before.
2. there is no info of 1.7
3. it has been "coming soon" ever since alpha.

 

1. Like every MC update. Every Plugin which uses CraftBukkit or NMS code, will break.
2. see above
3. 1.6 is a big step towards the Plugin API, due the new Launcher and Ressource Packs.
See the MC Wiki entry for more info (and watch the video linked in it) -> http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Plugin_api

 

I've been thinking about the same thing.
I wish they could give us a estimated completion time for CraftBukkit. For now, I'm just telling my players a couple weeks... How do the large servers get the latest updates online so fast?

 

They use dev builds, other Bukkit implementations or simply update it by themselfs, if they have enough and capable personal.

 

Syd They usually only change the protocol version and ban out all new items/blocks to make sure nothing much crashes.
I'm also expecting a lot of unnecessary plugin updates 'to support 1.6' (with no code changes - at all.)

 

saves the "OMG WHEN THIS PLUGIN UPDATES" though.

 

Simply going to the old file and editing the versions would do the trick. There's absolutely no need to upload a file without code changes.