Re: [GD-General] C# versus C++ for game engines

[Javier A. <ja...@py...>]

Noel Llopis <ll...@co...> wrote:

>> I strongly believe that C# is a worthy successor to C++,
>
> This is a serious question, not an attempt at trolling. I have read
> some about C# and I really don't see what the big deal is for most
> game programming. The way I see it, changing languages is something
> that will be painful and cause a medium-term productivity loss, so
> there must be some *extremely* compelling reasons to change.

Overall I like C# a lot, and I think that given a few years to reach
maturity (anyone remember C++ without multiple inheritance or templates?) it
will be a fantastic language. The fact that module interfaces are compiled
into the binary instead of relying on the archaic "include" method is
definitely a huge step forward from C++. Attributes and reflection should
make interfacing with other languages / tools much easier, too. I like the
fact that some patterns (Interfaces for example) are burned into the
language.

The problems you point out, however, make its adoption unadvisable for most
game projects. There is not a lot of productivity to gain compared to the
costs involved. I wonder if this situation will remain the same in, say, 5
years.

> Automatic garbage collection... shrug. It really doesn't seem that
> much of a big deal. Do people spend all that much time with memory
> problems in their apps?

Certainly not. If a game developer has trouble with memory management /
leaks, I'm sure that is only the tip of a huge iceberg of problems waiting
to show up.

  Javier Arevalo
  Pyro Studios