[Mono-ue] A call to establish a C# / Mono development and build environment for the plugin

Thu Mar 19 23:48:23 UTC 2015

As mentioned - we have tens of thousands of lines of C#, and a small number
of lines in JavaScript.  In short:

   - We have developers that need to know one language - C#
   - The rest of our product is in a single language
   - C++ itself is notoriously painful (though I know it reasonably well
   myself - I find it far easier to code in C# with Linq, reflection,
   automatic GC, etc etc)

In short: rather than either re-skill a developer to C++, or fragment the
team, or outsource the work, or any one of a myriad issues surrounding
supporting C++ - we're using C# unless a compelling case can be made to
support multiple languages.  As it is we're using C# with a number of
additional frameworks (eg Postsharp, etc) - so it's a non-trivial C#
environment in any case.

This should be just a plugin - built by Xamarin or Unreal / Epic.  This
would install in seconds. Ryan Burnham's comment seems to indicate the
issues he's found using the existing practice of "compile your own".

In addition to the rebuild problem - the statements around the fact that
the plugin isn't "production ready" after many months of apparently zero
development does not fill me with any sense that it's a viable option
long-term, and could be killed at any point.

Epic / Unreal - if you're listening : I will be blogging about our
experiences with the C# environment.   My most honest and best advice is
this:

   - Finish it - not all features need to be supported, but core ones do
   need to be
   - Include C# / Mono as part of your software build process - which will
   make it part of your normal dev cycle, and will disappear as a problem
   - Distribute it with the product out of the box
   - Trumpet it across the C# development threads

Right now it's a failed feature launch.  It indicates that it's easy to use
- but the reality is far from this, and is largely full of frustration.

On 20 March 2015 at 10:23, Eugene Tchoukhrov <ujen at vicogamestudio.com>
wrote:

> Hi David,
>
>
>
> I’m not with Xamarin nor Epic.
>
>
>
> Just for my curiosity, what are the reasons you and your team are tied to
> C#? I moved our team over to UE4 and C++ a couple years ago and we have not
> looked back. It has been a great experience working with C++ and UE4.
>
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Eugene
>
>
>
> PS, you don’t have to respond, but I’m simply curious.
>
>
>
> *From:* mono-ue-bounces at lists.ximian.com [mailto:
> mono-ue-bounces at lists.ximian.com] *On Behalf Of *David Ford
> *Sent:* Thursday, March 19, 2015 2:58 PM
> *To:* Ali Scissons
> *Cc:* mono-ue at lists.ximian.com
> *Subject:* Re: [Mono-ue] A call to establish a C# / Mono development and
> build environment for the plugin
>
>
>
> I think my request still stands.  There is very little (if any) benefit to
> having each individual developer compiling on their own.  Few (if any)
> Unreal downloadable examples appear to use 4.4.
>
>
>
> I am re-tasking our developers to Unity as of this morning, and halting
> Unreal development entirely.   We may return to Unreal at some point, but
> will review the decision to support two engines in detail before committing
> to that effort.
>
>
>
> If there are someone within Xamarin / Unreal that this email can be
> forwarded to - I'd appreciate it.  We're expending effort developing
> products, not wasting time recompiling (with compilation errors, as it
> turns out) non-production grade toolchains.
>
>
>
> Regards
>
>
>
> David
>
>
>
>
>
> On 20 March 2015 at 03:24, Ali Scissons <ali.scissons at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The plugin isn't complete and not ready for production use, not to mention
> the plugin requires changes with UE4 itself (thus the patches). However,
> not everyone is required to build UE4/plugin from scratch. Once it is
> built, you should be able to redistribute it to your other developers and
> only have them setup with C# related tools like Xamarin Studio and it's
> plugin.
>
>
> Ali Scissons
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 7:34 AM, David Ford <davidfordaus at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> I'm somewhat confused as to why each developer wishing to use C# "must"
> recompile from source.  As far as I can see there's nothing compelling
> within the Mono code that requires that each developer should rebuild for
> their own specific machine or environment.
>
>
>
> Can I suggest that the better (best) approach be that a virtualised build
> environment be established within Xamarin or Unreal / Epic, and that a
> single developer be tasked with updating the Mono plugin on each release of
> the game engine (presumably the API's don't change between patches to point
> releases - eg 4.7 + patch will be compatible with the plugin if 4.7 raw is
> compatible.  This developer wouldn't be full time, but may perhaps spend a
> day each month (or less, assuming straightforward compatibility between
> releases).
>
>
>
> At this stage there is potentially a vast amount of wasted effort having
> every C# developer establishing a full Mono build environment and toolchain
> for C#, when in fact most developers (including myself) simply want to
> download the Mono plugin and add it to the UDK, then add our own C#
> assemblies.
>
>
>
> We currently have one developer spending several days simply getting a
> Mono C# plugin environment to run, when in reality a pre-built Mono plugin
> would have removed all of that needless effort, and reduced the time to
> hours at most.
>
>
>
> We would prefer to use Unreal rather than Unity, however at this stage I
> may pull our Unreal development completely and switch our (early phase)
> project to the Unity platform based solely on the lack of a simplified
> development toolchain with C# / Mono.
>
>
>
> Note that all the other code for our project (20 + C## projects, tens of
> thousands of lines of code) are C#, and I see no reason to add a small
> amount of C++ purely to support Unreal, and based solely on the fact that
> recompiling the Mono C# plugin for each UDK release is non-core effort.
>
>
>
> Best regards
>
> David Ford
> 0421 659 552
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Mono-ue at lists.ximian.com
> http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-ue
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Best regards
>
> David Ford
> 0421 659 552
>

-- 
Best regards

David Ford
0421 659 552
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