Limitations of MonoDevelop

Hi Oron!

Thank you ever so much for your reply!

I am interested in creating games, mobile apps and desktop software! I don't feel I am at a position yet to limit myself to one strand of development so I would like to experiment with it all in much greater detail.

So your advice, for me, would be to pursue Java as oppose to C# or C++?

Java will definitely give you the most coverage, you can create android apps and games with Java, and cross platform desktop apps with Java

though you will find yourself struggling with the platform (mobile apps, games, desktop) most of the time and not with the language (:

I have created some Android apps with Java before but I never really got onto making games with it.

One of the reasons I went over to C# is because currently you can develop cross-platform mobile apps in it using Xamarin and I think Microsoft announced that they are also going to allow people to write cross-platform mobile apps using C#. I also, initially, started writing in C# because it works nicely with Unity and that seems to be an awesome tool to make games.

Do you think these are good enough reasons to use C# or would you still recommend Java?

Thank you for all the help so far and I hope you are having a fantastic day!

-Luke

Don't get me wrong I use C# almost everyday in my workplace, I'm very fond of C# and I think it is a very robust and solid language which leaves small room for mistakes.

Unity does supports C# and since C# is object oriented and most of the time it's much easier to implement a game design with object oriented language than Unity alternative, javascript.

So if you want to dive into Unity and don't know javascript already, C# is preferred here in my opinion.

Regarding Xamarin, it does have a solid foundation of community already, and does claim to support every new feature of the mobile os's as soon as they come out. Although, you will never have the same native support, feel and community than developing with their native languages (Objective C/Swift for iOS and Java for Android). Moreover, Xamarin costs money per year, and a lot of it, so it may be a factor on your final decision.

My opinion regarding Xamarin, is that if you already have lot of business logic of code in C# and want to reuse it in your mobile apps, or you're really attached to C# and don't want to learn other languages, go for Xamarin. Otherwise, I'll try the native alternatives for mobile development.

I am also quite fond of C# so far, I find it to be quite a nice language to write in.

It does indeed and I seen that you could write Unity scripts in JS, which I already know, but people seem to prefer C# for Unity so I thought 'why not!' and decided to learn it.

That is a very good point actually. I feel like you are sort of stuck in the middle of two communities when you develop with Xamarin. I am not too bothered about the cost as I have a Xamarin package already!

I am not really attached to any particular language and I think that is the problem. C++, C#, Java and JavaScript are all options for me but I just can't decide which one to stick out and go for!

I never said you should attach to one particular language, I also develop android with java ios with objective c, web with js, server side with c# and and js (nodejs). There's no need to attach to one (:

I'd appreciate marking this thread as answered if you feel this way.

I know you didn't explicitly say that but, I feel like, you implied it. It is quite hard to juggle languages when you are just learning them so I thought it would be better to stick to one.

So for everything I am wanting to do: Software, Apps, Games and more you would recommend Java?

If those apps and games are for android than yes (:

As of right now I don't know whether they are or not and that is my main issue. I am juggling wanting to do lots of different things and develop for lots of different platforms.