What is the best script language for Unity3D

Question

I am starting with game dev using Unity3d and I can see there's 3 supported languages for creating scripts: C#, unityscript and Boo...

although, coming from a web-design past I am obviously used with javascript, but after few attempts I could notice Unity3d doesn't really have full support to the script language and some elements like new Date().valueOf() and some other statements within methods such as the attribute arguments and many other won't work properly, also it seems my file can't have a wrapper method that envolves all the other methods like:

(function (scope) {
    function Start() {
        ...
    }
    ...
}(this));

and when using something like new Date().valueOf() which is valid in JS I get:

MissingMethodException: Method not found: 'System.DateTime.valueOf'. Boo.Lang.Runtime.DynamicDispatching.MethodDispatcherFactory.ProduceExtensionDispatcher ()

So perhaps the compiler turns that initial 'unityscript' code into Boo language? so perhaps Boo is the right 'native' choice and maybe unityscript itself isn't the best way to go when developing unity3d apps?

I was thinking on a language that has full support to all known native classes and methods which will work without problem?

Sorry for any errors mentioned above and please let me know what you think.

Tele

Answer 1

Unity doesn't use 'real' Javascript per se. See:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/1117-Javascript-Version

UnityScript is based on javascript 2.0. There are a few things missing (switch statements, etc.), but they get half the speed of C++, which is way faster than Mozilla.

Once you get used to it, developing in 'JS' for unity is very very fast and flexible...but of course, if you're going to develop native components, or interface to anything in C, you'll need to use C# (in the end, C# is not difficult to learn).

Bruin

Answer 2

If you want to be a developer in Unity and build a career on it, learn C# and use it - don't waste your time with UnityScript. You can use C# outside of Unity for programming. If your main career is already web development (or will be), then continue using javascript because ultimately C# and UnityScript have the same functionality but C# is much more widely used for programing games and applications.

The majority of the assets on the store that I have used are C# or offer both JS and C#. Mixing between the languages creates serious dependency problems because in order to use a class in either language it has to already have been processed by the Unity script loading order. To use a Javascript defined class in C#, that script file must have been processed prior to the C# script file. If the javscript class then later needs something from the C# class, you would have to find ways around it because its simply no longer possible from the javascript file. Unity has ways to define the script order.

I thought that I would warn you about mixing C# with UnityScript because if you don't focus on one or the other, you will run into this problem. Ultimately, C# is the middle ground between ambiguous languages like VB and JavaScript, and pedantic languages like C++ (I have a C/C++ background of about 10 years).

Your title "What is the best xxx" leads to opinionated answers, but I am trying to give the best advice possible without being subjective. C# will allow you to continue, even if Unity were to go away a year from now. UnityScript/JavaScript would only allow you to move into being a web developer. A C# developer can easily move into UnityScript/JavaScript, but the reverse is much harder (not impossible, just more difficult).

Dur

Answer 3

You should use c#. It is popular, mature, native to .NET. c# is what big teams use. Learning c# will be useful in the future. JS in Unity3D is not real JS as already mentioned and nobody heard of Boo.

Donadonadee

that's definitely something to consider, Valentin, thanks. I already had the opportunity to learn a bit of c# when creating a website using .NET MVC Framework once. The idea of dealing with Javascript which is "not really Javascript" doesn't excite me too much. Also, I couldn't agree more about Boo, never heard of it ;) – Tele

I love boo, though I'm sure they only implemented it because it took seconds, not because people would want to use it. – Hamal

Answer 4

JS is the most popular language for use with Unity. But the language is implemented in Mono, and so any restrictions in that implementation are going to affect Unity scripts too.

I don't know how the Mono implementation of JS works, but judging from the error message, it uses datatypes initially defined for Boo, at least. However, that doesn't mean that JS is "turned into Boo". Both are compiled into the same bytecode, which is JIT'ed and run by the Mono runtime. So neither language is "more native" than the other.

Dampier

Answer 5

Checkout advantages and disadvantages of using c# and Java script from here. C# is little bit faster than JavaScript and you get extra features provided by C#. You can get peoples opinion from here.

Developing with c# has advantage of Visual Studio 2010. It provides better code completion feature than Mono develop.

In JavaScript only, variables can have an unspecified type. This only occurs if you do not assign a value while declaring the variable.

Performance is slower with dynamically typed variables, and you can run into casting problems. Iif this is a concern, use #pragma strict.

Octo