1 yr. ago • 97%

The Future of C# in Godot – GameFromScratch.com

gamefromscratch.com The Future of C# in Godot – GameFromScratch.com

With the massive influx of Unity developers to Godot, the need to support C# programming in the future has never been more important.

36 comments

I'm going to say it (and eat the downvotes): Unity devs have become entitled, and kinda deserve the new Unity pricing structure.

Supporting more and more devices and functionality of c# on weirder and weirder runtimes. It is a mountain of dev work that Unity is paying for and subsidizing for your game. If there was an open source effort to make a unified c# runtime across all platforms that would be one thing, but it will always be front run by new features releasing to .NET so it will never exist.

Changing an existing agreement for pricing without any warning is gross. But something had to give eventually. I would have told you that 10 years ago.

3
- .net 7+ is an open source unified runtime.
  
  Unity just needed to move to .net (previously .net core) to save a tonne of work.
  
  3
  
  From unity's perspective it is a bunch of wasted work. Thats the issue - they threw a billion dollars at developing their proprietary c# runtime and not recouping the cost of investment. But they can't wait around for Microsoft to make moves. And they probably don't want to open source their runtime either out of fear that a free game engine using it will make the rounds.
  
  Godot ultimately has the right approach: offer support through universal bindings to it's underlying archetype and let devs decide what they want in their game's stack. Everyone wins.
  
  2
Why are we using C# I stead of C++ for the in editor language again? Inst C++ more compatible with everything? (I know that GDMatice exists, buts that's a lot more work to use I feel)

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- @Smorty @mac I have been wondering this non-stop since I found out #godot uses C#!
  
  I know the idea that C++ is the end-all-be-all is an oversimplification at best, but It's still a decision I'd like to know more about.
  
  2
  
  Godot is mostly written in C++, so it's such a weird decision to switch languages like that, and expose C# instead of C++ as a game logic programming language. I suppose it was done so that Unity devs would find it more attractive. Unreal uses C++, so yeah, why?
  
  Also brand bad, so no C# for me, only GDScript and C++ GDNative.
  
  1
- I get the idea of having flexible options for game devs. Support for systems language for engine internals (C++), hooks for a runtime machien based language (C#), and support for a dynamic scripting language (GDScript) makes sense architecturally. C# is also strategic because XNA to Unity has pretty much cemented its status for game devs. And then GDExtension to provide an api layer for whatever other language under the sun you want to use. It is a very sensible place for Godot to be in.
  
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- The main language is GDScript rather than either of them (although the engine itself is coded in C++). C# support was added on since microsoft gave them money to do it
  
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  @mac @Smorty 😨 Well that's not good! Microsquish (still) can't be trusted! 😰
  
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What I don't like about C# has nothing to do with the language itself, which is pretty good. Is the fact that is made by Microsoft and their tooling SUCKS. I'm having to build .NET projects at work and the dotnet CLI is pure garbage. I wish we had something better instead of using C# but the gamedev industry is pretty invested on it.

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- Hi. I am not a game dev, but a c# one. What is it that frustrates you about the dotnet CLI?
  
  Edit: I use C# for work, not a Microsoft employee who works on c# dev lol
  
  8
  
  Documentation is the worst offender. I remember one time that running dotnet restore and later running another command with --no-restore flag wouldn't work, but running the last command without the --no-restore flag would. Creating a sane CI/CD pipeline for C# apps is a PITA.
  
  1
- This is the major problem with c#. Godot project should target support of .net and mono runtime and THAT'S IT. If you want C# to run on iOS, Microsoft and Apple have to fix it. Let's not spend 1 billion dollars a year making sure whatever random iOS runtime is supported like unity did. That is the root cause of why they would like to charge I stall fees in the first place.
  
  3
  
  .net (formally .net core) runs on all major OSs.
  
  Mono and .net framework are super out of date and shouldn't be used anymore.
  
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Or, ya know, just learn another language. It's not a big jump.

Edit: Godot 4.x is already slated to support a plethora of languages- including C#.

But even if the devs decided to not support C# for some reason: you're really going to walk away from a game engine over not being able to use C#?

-9
- Of all the languages I've used over the years, C# is one of the best I've found recently. I'd rather not.
  
  16
  
  Fear of change?
  
  1
- Well I mean the biggest thing that would be the ultimate ideal would be anything that can maximize the ability to bring existing unity projects over to godot. IE minimal refactoring needed.
  
  Big thing is not just getting people to start their new projects, but what about those who have spent 3+ years mastering their game, only to have the rug pulled out from under them when it was 80% of the way to release worthy.
  
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- It's a single purpose language. Learning it will bring you no benefit other than using Godot.
  
  Learn c# and you can do basicly anything you want.
  
  Also gdscript is kinda ugly.
  
  7
  
  I disagree. Even if one is new to programming, learning GDScript still teaches one how to program. Loops, conditions, variables, functions... basically all that is programming is still part of GDScript and it would be no more difficult, once learned, to switch from GDScript to any other language as it would to switch from C#, C/C++, Python, etc. That is to say, once you understand how to program, it's nowhere near as hard to switch languages as initially learning your first one.
  
  That said, the same could be argued when working with different engines within the same language. C# in Unity, C# in Godot, and C# in ASP.Net applications all have their idiosyncracies that might make the language feel different, even though, at it's core, it's the same language. How a library functions can have a drastic effect on how you program a language, and if you change one library for another, even in the same language, you may find you have to alter your programming style.
  
  Additionally, languages can be ported. GDScript currently only exists in Godot, but nothing is stopping anyone from writing a python-like or nodejs-like runtime interpreter for the language that allows you to use GDScript sans-Godot.
  
  As for how nice the language looks... that's subjective. I, honestly, find GDScript to be a very clean looking language (much like I do Python... probably unsurprisingly). C#, on the other hand, I find to be a verbose mess, seeming to take 100 lines of course to accomplish something I can do in 10 in other languages. But, again, that's subjective
  
  5
  
  It takes no time at all to "learn" GDScript if you are a programmer already. It is that simple
  
  0
- i just want enums and interfaces!!!
  
  5
  
  Gdscript has enums.
  
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