Irrlicht Engine

will Irrlicht.NET be given up ?

as i see nearly no update on Irrlicht 1.2 on .NET part
the whole library , compared with Irrlicht (non .NET), is much smaller and with much fewer useful classes .

(obviously , less support is given to .NET programmers in this forum , as i can see most of you are non .NET users .)

im a little naive about .NET... what are the advantages of the .NET version?

im a little naive about .NET... what are the advantages of the .NET version?

Some users like managed languages, C#, Visual Basic .NET, Delphi .NET. They find it is more productive to write in these languages. In some ways, they are right, although I much prefer C++. My biggest dislike of .NET is its not cross-platform and very slow to load. It generally creates larger executables, too. The only bright side of .NET for me, or more specifically C#, is that it can be used with XNA. Unfortunately, the Irrlicht .NET SDK is a wrapper only, not a port, and uses many C++ classes underneath. Niko did mention considering changing this in the future though. When it comes to Irrlicht users choosing the current .NET wrapper, it usually is because they don't know C++. C++ is quite an advanced and challenging language to learn, and doesn't provide a very friendly interface for beginners.

Note: I use Visual Basic .NET for a lot of my projects for windows form apps. I find that the Windows Form Designer saves a lot of time. Also, for those who love DirectX, managed DirectX is a lot faster to code, although much slower to load! I must state that MONO looks interesting for a future version of .NET on Linux!

um...
i am a .NET programmer, which uses C# as the main programming language. before using Irrlicht, i use a 3D Engine called Lucid platform (which is an academic-use engine ) to write my 3D game . it provides the function very similar to Irrlicht, but it uses C++ as programming language.

i take a lot of time to deal with the pointer-address relationship ( i.e. the & sign and * sign ) , as i always mixed them up . i wondered at the time , " why do people still use C++ ? " 3dddev answered my question (thanks ).

but i think the most disadvantage of C++ is the extremely LONG programming time . i am a beginner in C++ ; i write C++ for only 1 year only . the file dependecy of C++ makes me crazy. .NET library is a fully developed framework , which can call managed resources easily .

more benefits of C# :
1. it handles and specifies all exceptions
2. auto memory management ( auto garbage collection )
3. no need to use #define statements ~ ( painful to me )
4. no need to use header files . ( which i think is complicated )
5. simple data types
6. friendly debugger
( correct me if wrong )
that's why C# is replacing Java and other similar languages .

non cross-platform does not matter for me , because i target on M$ Windows users only .

before a future non-wrapper version of .NET on Windows , i think i still have to stick on Irrlicht .NET
when will be the next .NET version of Irrlicht ?
(p.s. : sorry for my poor english)

1. it handles and specifies all exceptions
2. auto memory management ( auto garbage collection )
3. no need to use #define statements ~ ( painful to me )
4. no need to use header files . ( which i think is complicated )
5. simple data types
6. friendly debugger

C# throws exceptions exactly like C++. For example, if you try to divide 0 by 10, both languages will throw exceptions and abort.
I agree that memory management is nice, but it is very simple to write delete variable;.
#define statements are usually not necessary at all, but rather add extra power and functionability to the code.
Header files can be considered be considered the equivalent to importing classes(Microsoft.System....) in C#.
I can't tell the difference between C++-C# data types.
Microsoft Visual C++ debugger is as great as the C# equivalent.

One think I have to note, which is more C specific, is that C/C++ allows you to write kernels along with ASM. I have done it myself, and it is really quite fun. C# would never allow you to do that!

yes , i agree .
i use C to write machine codes to program chips ( i cannot remember the chip model , seems to call 8051 something ).

but i would like to say , C# is just like a simplified C++ , which is easier to learn and code . fully managed library is always an advantage .

my title sums up some of the advantages of C# that are most impressive to me. as much as it gets hated on by big c/c++ gurus, a garbage collector is an invaluable feature. how many of us have slaved over a large bit of c++ code trying desperately to figure out where we were leaking memory, i know i have. c# also has some really fantastic built in threads. very easy to use, and very effective. also, of course, there is great support for the win32 GUI. with the forms designer and everything. this isnt all that relevant to irrlicht, but for a business or productivity app(which is what pays my bills!), having easy to use gui support is very important. also, the sockets library in c# is very solid, and includes native object serialisation, which is quite cool. really c# is a solid OO language with a great standard library, i personally love it.

since irrlicht.NET is just a managed c++ wrapper, it really doesnt get much love. some guys started a full native c# rewrite of irrlicht a while ago, irrlicht#, but it is still pretty far from complete as far as i know. also, DeusXL maintains a much improved irrlicht wrapper, called IrrlichtCP, which is much better and more complete than the stock .NET wrapper.

honestly it's not really niko's fault, both directx and opengl have sort of half-assed support for .NET languages via various wrappers/implementations. the idea of using managed languages for games is really pretty new still, and support for it is still nascent, and underdeveloped. hopefully, it will come around as .NET and MONO get more popular. one promising technology for this is XNA, which is definitely worth checking out

auto_ptr<T>

True. lug likes the gui designer in C# and C++ .Net. However, as far as .Net support, the Visual C++ .Net seems to lag behind the Visual C# support.

The intellisense for C# is way better than Visual C++. For instance, the intellisense in C# will suggest code snippet for commonly used code that one can insert via the "Tab" key as you type out the line. Visual C++ intellisense does not do this.

Visual C# shows syntax errors on-the-fly like the grammar/spelling hightlight in word. Visual C# will show a pop-up suggestion for partially typed word. Both of these features aren't in the Visual C++ side.

Also, visual C# has refactoring support through the menu while visual C++ does not. Then there's the UML visualization that can be done in visual C# but not supported in visual C++.

Finally, XNA does not support visual C++ only C#.

MS does not love visual C++.

MS does not love visual C++.

XNA and C# is quite mis-leading. You pay $99.00 and then you can't distribute your own apps except to other XNA users? That seems like a rip-off. I personally don't think a lot of XNA. As for Intellisense, agreed, MS is behind for VC++. Why not buy VisualAssist? With it, VC++ supersedes anything that Microsoft offers for C#.

3ddev wrote:Why not buy VisualAssist? With it, VC++ supersedes anything that Microsoft offers for C#.

VA is very expensive and doesn't work with Express/Standard Edition of Visual Studio. You need at least Professional. (which then lets the price tag look not too expensive all of the sudden...)

3ddev wrote: you can't distribute your own apps except to other XNA users? That seems like a rip-off.

i think that's only the case if you write an app for the xbox 360. you can use XNA for PC games too. for those you don't need to pay the 99$. it is both a cheap amateur xbox devkit, and a free replacement for managed directx on the PC side. i still think it's worth a look...

lug will go try out XNA but sucks to have to install visual c# express first.

3ddev -- yes, lug have tried visual assist plugin for vs 2005. but for some reason it doesn't "feel" right. can't seem to figure out what but it doesn't flow right for lug.

So does it make sense to make XNA wrapper for irrlicht?