4 ms·

I hope they will drop the funny little language in favour of first-class C# support.

no_wizard 3y ago
Godot 4.0 has C# support. They're working on getting it up and moving for iOS and Android but it already works on Desktop
- jayd16 3y ago
  I think the emphasis is on "first-class" support. I don't think they'll be able to really pull over Unity devs until C# mobile is nicely supported. I know every time I personally go to take a peek I see that C# support is still a good bit behind and decide to let it keep baking. I'm still very excited for it, though.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Partial support, there is nothing for game consoles and mobiles.
gaogao 3y ago
Seconding that Godot C# support is pretty alright and in motion, but also GDScript actually is rather nice for game jamming and quick prototyping.
EamonnMR 3y ago
Their funny little language is really close to Python so it's tapping into a huge base of Python developers.
- noarchy 3y ago
  Is there any background for why they chose to roll their own language, rather than harness Python or another, popular language?
  - opencl 3y ago
    There is indeed a section about that in the docs. https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/about/faq.html#what-were-the-motivations-behind-creating-gdscript https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/about/faq.html#what-w...
pavlov 3y ago
It’s not that long ago when people were saying: “Weird how Unity uses Microsoft’s enterprise Java clone. Why can’t they use C++ like real game engines? Nobody will develop a proper game on this language.”
- Supermancho 3y ago
  One can still hope.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Only those that having been around for the history of game development. Once upon a time the same was told about Basic, C and Pascal, all serious game development was Assembly. Then the same was told about C++, all serious game development was in C. Then the same was told about Java, and a couple of folks not paying attention got millionaires. Then ...
  - eestrada 3y ago
    Yes, this. So many devs get caught up on which language is used. I have my pet languages that I prefer too, but at the end of the day a game engine is about creating games. So long as the language offered is reasonably usable and one can deliver a fun and engaging experience with it, the language bindings don't matter much. Everything I've read about GDScript indicates that it fills the need, is fun to use, and generally gets out of the way so devs can focus on creating fun and engaging experiences. The only reason I see having C# support is critical is if a Dev is porting from another engine (i.e Unity) midway through development or if the dev/studio has lots of boilerplate code or libraries already written for prior titles. If starting from scratch, I don't see a good reason to stick with it.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    I really hope Rust is the next iteration of this story. At least for the deep engine/rendering code. You can have a scripting layer on top of that for designer iteration.
- mardifoufs 3y ago
stuckinhell 3y ago
That would kill unity and make godot the preferred engine over night for large indie communities.
- squeaky-clean 3y ago
  I don't think that will happen until Godot has an asset store with as much content as Unity.
  - stuckinhell 3y ago
    Not as hard as you think. just a few assets ported will be enough. - 3d player controller - dialogue system - vr kits - animation system in the style of mechanim Those are what the vast majority of indies buy beyond 3d assets where they can get elsewhere.
1123581321 3y ago
I prototype Godot games with a small team that is less technical. They are able to handle (some) GDScript but not C#. I realize my use case is non-professional but I think it's good that a more accessible language is the default option.
elliotpage 3y ago
I don't see why there cannot be both? GDScript is perfectly useful.
- bastardoperator 3y ago
  I prefer it. I'm not wasting a single second in C# until I have to.
- danielvaughn 3y ago
  For me it's not whether it's useful, it's whether the tradeoffs are worth it. I assume GDScript has some unique features that make it especially useful in Godot development, but the disadvantage is that the skills aren't transferrable to any other platform or environment. At least C# and C++ are applicable outside of the engines that use them.
  - interroboink 3y ago
    I get what you're saying, but a good chunk of transferable skills are not language-specific. Programming in a video game environment is going to impress some knowledge upon you that is generally useful, regardless of the language you use.
  - cweagans 3y ago
    The skills are transferrable enough. It's Python with a little syntactic sugar for Godot-specific things. It's an easy language to pick up for beginners and powerful enough for experienced devs. Kind of the sweet spot for game dev, IMO.
- ImprobableTruth 3y ago
  Because as is C# is very noticeably a second class citizen. Something like Godot 4.0/4.1 missing C# support for android/ios/web shows that perfectly imo.
marcosdumay 3y ago
Why do you want them to drop it? Why is it not enough that you can completely ignore it and write your games in C#?
danbolt 3y ago
No way! The funny little language rules! It's a competitive advantage for Godot. GDScript integrates so nicely with the Node/Resource refcount model. It fills the same niche that Unreal's Blueprints do, which is great! When you've found something performance-critical, it's not difficult to convert a GDScript node into a GDNative one. I feel like a lot of the "GDScript, ick!" comments tend to assume that the scripting language is trying to be Lua/C#/Python tacked onto a C++ codebase. It's a lot more tightly-integrated with the runtime, and it makes organizing things a lot better in the long run.
- treyd 3y ago
  The Rust bindings (crates gdnative for 3.0 and gdext for 4.0) also are pretty great. I've only used them a bit so far but once I got the hang of it it works well. They don't seem to teeth badly with Rust's ownership semantics like some attempts at wrapping GTK struggled with.
  - danbolt 3y ago
    I haven't used Rust professionally, but have often wondered if Rust's RAII [1] meshes decently with the lifetime of a RefCounted in Godot. [2] While Godot's profiling has a lot of room for improvement, I appreciate how intuitive memory usage is from both a design and technical standpoint. [1] https://doc.rust-lang.org/rust-by-example/scope/raii.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/rust-by-example/scope/raii.html [2] https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/classes/class_refcounted.html https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/classes/class_refcoun...
- blensor 3y ago
  The funny thing is that if you are looking for some GDScript call into the engine it oftern supports exactly the functionality you need for your use case even though other more common use cases are not supported. It shows that the developers making it are also the ones using it for themselves.
vunderba 3y ago
Agreed, having C# be the default would also better incentivize former Unity devs to jump ship. Not to mention that learning C# has value outside of Godot, whereas GDScript is not exactly transferable knowledge.

Godot 4.0 has C# support. They're working on getting it up and moving for iOS and Android but it already works on Desktop

jayd16 3y ago
I think the emphasis is on "first-class" support. I don't think they'll be able to really pull over Unity devs until C# mobile is nicely supported. I know every time I personally go to take a peek I see that C# support is still a good bit behind and decide to let it keep baking. I'm still very excited for it, though.
pjmlp 3y ago
Partial support, there is nothing for game consoles and mobiles.

gaogao 3y ago

Seconding that Godot C# support is pretty alright and in motion, but also GDScript actually is rather nice for game jamming and quick prototyping.

EamonnMR 3y ago

Their funny little language is really close to Python so it's tapping into a huge base of Python developers.

noarchy 3y ago
Is there any background for why they chose to roll their own language, rather than harness Python or another, popular language?
- opencl 3y ago
  There is indeed a section about that in the docs. https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/about/faq.html#what-were-the-motivations-behind-creating-gdscript https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/about/faq.html#what-w...

pavlov 3y ago

It’s not that long ago when people were saying: “Weird how Unity uses Microsoft’s enterprise Java clone. Why can’t they use C++ like real game engines? Nobody will develop a proper game on this language.”

Supermancho 3y ago
One can still hope.
pjmlp 3y ago
Only those that having been around for the history of game development. Once upon a time the same was told about Basic, C and Pascal, all serious game development was Assembly. Then the same was told about C++, all serious game development was in C. Then the same was told about Java, and a couple of folks not paying attention got millionaires. Then ...
- eestrada 3y ago
  Yes, this. So many devs get caught up on which language is used. I have my pet languages that I prefer too, but at the end of the day a game engine is about creating games. So long as the language offered is reasonably usable and one can deliver a fun and engaging experience with it, the language bindings don't matter much. Everything I've read about GDScript indicates that it fills the need, is fun to use, and generally gets out of the way so devs can focus on creating fun and engaging experiences. The only reason I see having C# support is critical is if a Dev is porting from another engine (i.e Unity) midway through development or if the dev/studio has lots of boilerplate code or libraries already written for prior titles. If starting from scratch, I don't see a good reason to stick with it.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  I really hope Rust is the next iteration of this story. At least for the deep engine/rendering code. You can have a scripting layer on top of that for designer iteration.
mardifoufs 3y ago

stuckinhell 3y ago

That would kill unity and make godot the preferred engine over night for large indie communities.

squeaky-clean 3y ago
I don't think that will happen until Godot has an asset store with as much content as Unity.
- stuckinhell 3y ago
  Not as hard as you think. just a few assets ported will be enough. - 3d player controller - dialogue system - vr kits - animation system in the style of mechanim Those are what the vast majority of indies buy beyond 3d assets where they can get elsewhere.

1123581321 3y ago

I prototype Godot games with a small team that is less technical. They are able to handle (some) GDScript but not C#. I realize my use case is non-professional but I think it's good that a more accessible language is the default option.

elliotpage 3y ago

I don't see why there cannot be both? GDScript is perfectly useful.

bastardoperator 3y ago
I prefer it. I'm not wasting a single second in C# until I have to.
danielvaughn 3y ago
For me it's not whether it's useful, it's whether the tradeoffs are worth it. I assume GDScript has some unique features that make it especially useful in Godot development, but the disadvantage is that the skills aren't transferrable to any other platform or environment. At least C# and C++ are applicable outside of the engines that use them.
- interroboink 3y ago
  I get what you're saying, but a good chunk of transferable skills are not language-specific. Programming in a video game environment is going to impress some knowledge upon you that is generally useful, regardless of the language you use.
- cweagans 3y ago
  The skills are transferrable enough. It's Python with a little syntactic sugar for Godot-specific things. It's an easy language to pick up for beginners and powerful enough for experienced devs. Kind of the sweet spot for game dev, IMO.
ImprobableTruth 3y ago
Because as is C# is very noticeably a second class citizen. Something like Godot 4.0/4.1 missing C# support for android/ios/web shows that perfectly imo.

marcosdumay 3y ago

Why do you want them to drop it? Why is it not enough that you can completely ignore it and write your games in C#?

danbolt 3y ago

No way! The funny little language rules! It's a competitive advantage for Godot. GDScript integrates so nicely with the Node/Resource refcount model. It fills the same niche that Unreal's Blueprints do, which is great! When you've found something performance-critical, it's not difficult to convert a GDScript node into a GDNative one. I feel like a lot of the "GDScript, ick!" comments tend to assume that the scripting language is trying to be Lua/C#/Python tacked onto a C++ codebase. It's a lot more tightly-integrated with the runtime, and it makes organizing things a lot better in the long run.

treyd 3y ago
The Rust bindings (crates gdnative for 3.0 and gdext for 4.0) also are pretty great. I've only used them a bit so far but once I got the hang of it it works well. They don't seem to teeth badly with Rust's ownership semantics like some attempts at wrapping GTK struggled with.
- danbolt 3y ago
  I haven't used Rust professionally, but have often wondered if Rust's RAII [1] meshes decently with the lifetime of a RefCounted in Godot. [2] While Godot's profiling has a lot of room for improvement, I appreciate how intuitive memory usage is from both a design and technical standpoint. [1] https://doc.rust-lang.org/rust-by-example/scope/raii.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/rust-by-example/scope/raii.html [2] https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/classes/class_refcounted.html https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/classes/class_refcoun...
blensor 3y ago
The funny thing is that if you are looking for some GDScript call into the engine it oftern supports exactly the functionality you need for your use case even though other more common use cases are not supported. It shows that the developers making it are also the ones using it for themselves.

vunderba 3y ago

Agreed, having C# be the default would also better incentivize former Unity devs to jump ship. Not to mention that learning C# has value outside of Godot, whereas GDScript is not exactly transferable knowledge.