potential strategies for reducing plugin size

[StillGreen-san]

this is not a direct request and instead intended for general discussion

the plugin is already on the larger side and adding more libraries to support additional services/protocols/features, will increase size further

there are multiple ways to handle it, each with there own tradeoffs

accept large plugin

no additional work required
storage and bandwidth are abundant, so 100-200MB aren't that big of a deal, even if it is unusually large

hand rolling

only writing things absolutely needed by hand instead of using an existing library
decreases size by not including unused code through big libraries
but increases error surface and maintenance burden by having to implement things yourself
may increase time required to implement a new feature by not being able to rely on abstractions from the libraries

minimizing / tree shaking

reduces the size by removing unused code from the jar after the jar has been build
may increase build time
needs proper configuration so it does not remove to much

possible options:
maven-shade-plugin (already in the project)
proguard
r8
shakyboi
JarShrink

dynamic downloading

only download dependency at runtime
could also only download libs that are actually required by the user

as seen in the wild:
luckyperms
spigot (libraries setting in plugin.yml)

[StillGreen-san]

personally im in the 'accept large plugin' camp
at least until either 'minimizing' or 'dynamic downloading' are possible

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the minify option of maven-shade-plugin for example can reduce the size from ~100mb (with ms graph sdk) to ~80mb. which is ok for an option you can just toggle but doesnt really move the needle

proguard i could not get to work properly, it always removed to much, so that the plugin would not load anymore

downloading the libs on demand seems like the thing that already exists as a library, but i did not search for it