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I'm really looking forward to the proper release of Godot 3! Want to use it to get my kids into game writing, but have been holding off because Godot 2 has a c

I'm really looking forward to the proper release of Godot 3! Want to use it to get my kids into game writing, but have been holding off because Godot 2 has a custom scripting language which will be going away and I don't want to invest in that. Any idea when 3.0 ships?

pier25 9y ago
Their custom scripting language is the main reason for not choosing Godot. I didn't know they were replacing it in v3. Any idea what are they going to use?
- speps 9y ago
  https://godotengine.org/article/godot-getting-more-languages https://godotengine.org/article/godot-getting-more-languages However, compared to parent: > GDScript will always be the main supported language, and our recommended choice for all Godot users. > To clarify things: since the Mono runtime is relatively heavy, and many Godot users will prefer to stick to GDScript, we intend to provide the Mono-enabled version of Godot as a separate download. They're also adding their version of visual scripting...
- amarsahinovic 9y ago
  GDScript will not be replaced in 3.0 but they will add support for other languages, like C#. Personally, I find GDScript quite OK since you can treat it just like Python, and I think there are some interfaces that enable you to use real Python in Godot (check out their blog).
  - thehardsphere 9y ago
    Do you know how the performance of GDScript execution compares to something like Python embedded in an engine where the more costly operations are run in compiled C or C++ code? Or even how the real Python performance in Godot compares to the GDScript performance? I tried to find this out, but the one "benchmark" I found was somewhat dubious. The Godot documentation claims that GDScript has all sorts of advantages over using other scripting languages that sound qualitatively superior, but it lacks quantitative comparisons.
    - giancarlostoro 9y ago
      If perf is an issue check out GDNative. Then you can code in Rust, D, C++ etc with Godot.
      - thehardsphere 9y ago
        That looks like a nice way to add support for other libraries or optimize certain operations. But I'm more interested in a comparison between dynamic languages for quickly writing game logic. It's a pattern that seems fairly common (e.g. with Lua or Python bolted onto C/C++) and Godot's implementation of that idea is very unusual. They claim benefits for it, I'm curious if those benefits actually pay off in some quantitative fashion.
        TeddyDD 9y ago
        Main advantages are tight integration with engine and ease of use. As I wrote here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15310477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15310477 GDScript is not very fast but It's rally an issue. In 3.0 where we will have C# and GDNative it won't be an issue at all.
        thehardsphere 9y ago
        That is an exceptionally useful answer for me because I'm considering this for a strategy game with tilemaps. Thank you.
    - Mikeb85 9y ago
      > The Godot documentation claims that GDScript has all sorts of advantages over using other scripting languages that sound qualitatively superior, but it lacks quantitative comparisons. The advantage of GDScript is that all its primitives are the same as the C++ primitives that lie underneath. It's memory management model is the same as the engine's, etc... A GDScript function is a C++ function. GDScript is completely integrated into the engine, so if you're doing typical game-dev sort of things, there's literally no overhead.
    - 9y ago
dave_sullivan 9y ago
You might really like UE4's blueprint system, it's the only time I've seen "visual programming" work really well.
- lfowles 9y ago
  It's really impressive. I thought I'd be using C++ a lot more when I started seriously digging into UE4, but more and more it's just to make helper functions so the primary logic and asset management can be done in blueprints.
- jscheel 9y ago
  Godot 3.0 also has visual scripting
Mikeb85 9y ago
> Godot 2 has a custom scripting language which will be going away It's not going away, it'll still be in 3.0 and probably forever after. Just in 3.0 you have the option of C#, as well as C, C++, D, Nim, and others if using GDNative. Edit - if it's for your kids, there's also going to be visual scripting in 3.0 (which basically is the same as GDScript, in visual form).

pier25 9y ago

Their custom scripting language is the main reason for not choosing Godot. I didn't know they were replacing it in v3. Any idea what are they going to use?

speps 9y ago
https://godotengine.org/article/godot-getting-more-languages https://godotengine.org/article/godot-getting-more-languages However, compared to parent: > GDScript will always be the main supported language, and our recommended choice for all Godot users. > To clarify things: since the Mono runtime is relatively heavy, and many Godot users will prefer to stick to GDScript, we intend to provide the Mono-enabled version of Godot as a separate download. They're also adding their version of visual scripting...
amarsahinovic 9y ago
GDScript will not be replaced in 3.0 but they will add support for other languages, like C#. Personally, I find GDScript quite OK since you can treat it just like Python, and I think there are some interfaces that enable you to use real Python in Godot (check out their blog).
- thehardsphere 9y ago
  Do you know how the performance of GDScript execution compares to something like Python embedded in an engine where the more costly operations are run in compiled C or C++ code? Or even how the real Python performance in Godot compares to the GDScript performance? I tried to find this out, but the one "benchmark" I found was somewhat dubious. The Godot documentation claims that GDScript has all sorts of advantages over using other scripting languages that sound qualitatively superior, but it lacks quantitative comparisons.
  - giancarlostoro 9y ago
    If perf is an issue check out GDNative. Then you can code in Rust, D, C++ etc with Godot.
    - thehardsphere 9y ago
      That looks like a nice way to add support for other libraries or optimize certain operations. But I'm more interested in a comparison between dynamic languages for quickly writing game logic. It's a pattern that seems fairly common (e.g. with Lua or Python bolted onto C/C++) and Godot's implementation of that idea is very unusual. They claim benefits for it, I'm curious if those benefits actually pay off in some quantitative fashion.
      - TeddyDD 9y ago
        Main advantages are tight integration with engine and ease of use. As I wrote here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15310477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15310477 GDScript is not very fast but It's rally an issue. In 3.0 where we will have C# and GDNative it won't be an issue at all.
        thehardsphere 9y ago
        That is an exceptionally useful answer for me because I'm considering this for a strategy game with tilemaps. Thank you.
  - Mikeb85 9y ago
    > The Godot documentation claims that GDScript has all sorts of advantages over using other scripting languages that sound qualitatively superior, but it lacks quantitative comparisons. The advantage of GDScript is that all its primitives are the same as the C++ primitives that lie underneath. It's memory management model is the same as the engine's, etc... A GDScript function is a C++ function. GDScript is completely integrated into the engine, so if you're doing typical game-dev sort of things, there's literally no overhead.
  - 9y ago

dave_sullivan 9y ago

You might really like UE4's blueprint system, it's the only time I've seen "visual programming" work really well.

lfowles 9y ago
It's really impressive. I thought I'd be using C++ a lot more when I started seriously digging into UE4, but more and more it's just to make helper functions so the primary logic and asset management can be done in blueprints.
jscheel 9y ago
Godot 3.0 also has visual scripting

Mikeb85 9y ago

> Godot 2 has a custom scripting language which will be going away It's not going away, it'll still be in 3.0 and probably forever after. Just in 3.0 you have the option of C#, as well as C, C++, D, Nim, and others if using GDNative. Edit - if it's for your kids, there's also going to be visual scripting in 3.0 (which basically is the same as GDScript, in visual form).