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Unity has gone far beyond cross compilation of C# to C++ now. Their Burst compiler is capable of compiling C# straight to assembly with vectorization optimizati

Unity has gone far beyond cross compilation of C# to C++ now. Their Burst compiler is capable of compiling C# straight to assembly with vectorization optimizations. They’ve even ported core C++ components of the engine into bursted C# because the resulting code is faster and a quarter of the size. It’s impressive stuff.

fendy3002 8y ago
I wonder why they choose c# over other language common for scripting / gaming engine, like lua c++ or even java. I think C# is good and designed well (over java), and I wonder if it's the same for them.
- mycall 8y ago
  Unity features three scripting languages; JavaScript/UnityScript, C#, and Boo
  - MattRix 8y ago
    This is technically true, but these days using anything other than C# is strongly discouraged.
  - lasagnaphil 8y ago
    UnityScript and Boo are deprecated and most people strongly discourage from using it.
- ecuzzillo 8y ago
  https://blogs.unity3d.com/2019/02/26/on-dots-c-c/ https://blogs.unity3d.com/2019/02/26/on-dots-c-c/ has a high-level overview for why not C++. Moreover, Unity has invested heavily in the c#/.net/mono ecosystem; the editor runs on mono, and the runtimes are all either IL2CPP (an in-house translation from .NET bytecode to C++) or mono as well. It would be a truly crazy amount of work to switch, for little or no clear benefit. If one were picking a language today to write an engine in, Rust might be a reasonable competitor, but it's also fairly new and is arguably less noob-friendly. C# offers a nice ramp from new programmer to performance-critical AAA with burst.
- jayd16 8y ago
  They most likely chose C# because mono they originally targeted macs and mono compiled to that. Ultimately it was the best of the three languages they chose to support (Javascript and Boo being the others).
- hesdeadjim 8y ago
  C# was the only choice they had of a typesafe language that had a runtime portable to many platforms (Mono). C++ is terrible for fast iteration times and is capable of hard-crashing with simple mistakes, Lua is not typesafe and the library support is weak, and Java is still not a portable language in 2019 (PS4, Xbox, Switch and even iOS). C# has ended up being a wonderful choice to build games in, and now that the 2019 version of Unity has an incremental GC we are entering a golden age with the tool.

fendy3002 8y ago

I wonder why they choose c# over other language common for scripting / gaming engine, like lua c++ or even java. I think C# is good and designed well (over java), and I wonder if it's the same for them.

mycall 8y ago
Unity features three scripting languages; JavaScript/UnityScript, C#, and Boo
- MattRix 8y ago
  This is technically true, but these days using anything other than C# is strongly discouraged.
- lasagnaphil 8y ago
  UnityScript and Boo are deprecated and most people strongly discourage from using it.
ecuzzillo 8y ago
https://blogs.unity3d.com/2019/02/26/on-dots-c-c/ https://blogs.unity3d.com/2019/02/26/on-dots-c-c/ has a high-level overview for why not C++. Moreover, Unity has invested heavily in the c#/.net/mono ecosystem; the editor runs on mono, and the runtimes are all either IL2CPP (an in-house translation from .NET bytecode to C++) or mono as well. It would be a truly crazy amount of work to switch, for little or no clear benefit. If one were picking a language today to write an engine in, Rust might be a reasonable competitor, but it's also fairly new and is arguably less noob-friendly. C# offers a nice ramp from new programmer to performance-critical AAA with burst.
jayd16 8y ago
They most likely chose C# because mono they originally targeted macs and mono compiled to that. Ultimately it was the best of the three languages they chose to support (Javascript and Boo being the others).
hesdeadjim 8y ago
C# was the only choice they had of a typesafe language that had a runtime portable to many platforms (Mono). C++ is terrible for fast iteration times and is capable of hard-crashing with simple mistakes, Lua is not typesafe and the library support is weak, and Java is still not a portable language in 2019 (PS4, Xbox, Switch and even iOS). C# has ended up being a wonderful choice to build games in, and now that the 2019 version of Unity has an incremental GC we are entering a golden age with the tool.