...and why the fuck do their predictions matter in the least?

Secondly: javascript has nowhere near the performance needed for anything but games with simple mechanics. You simply cannot afford the overhead of js when dealing with thousands of entities with AI at 60 frames per second. Either stuttering or excessive battery draining will happen.

As always, variety is good, and it is obvious that HTML5/js will be a good fit for many games. Many others will still require *at least* flash, silverlight (silverlight 5 will integrate XNA and may work on OS X, very interesting for a game dev), or even C/C++.

The last question is why does a new technology always seems to imply that alternatives will automatically shrink? The world is not a zero sum game, and we constantly *expand* our horizons...

...as long as it works, who cares how many people use it?

...when you keep teaching the same boring crap in the most boring way. Yes, even with laptops, iPads, projectors and all the bells and whistles.

Actually, I do know what I am talking about: I teach/research functional programming and game development, and guess what? I use the latter when teaching the former, to make it more entertaining. More than one student, after one such lesson, approached me to tell me that he was quite surprised to find that functional programming could actually be "fun" (pun intended).

The problem is that students are surprised when something is shown in a fun and entertaining fashion, and they accept it when stale notions are pushed down their throats. I'd start by fixing this...

Sims 3 used mono http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software)

You are saying a bunch of crapload. Ignorance is less excusable if you are also aggressively pulling falsehood out of your ass.

The days when performance was extremely sensitive forcing you to stay close to the metal are over, and we live in a blessed day where a variety of tools can be used together. Gamedevs are among the last ones to make this transition *partially* away from C/C++ and this is a gargantuan step for a very technologically-conservative industry. Yes, C/C++ still has an important place in gamedev. No, you can (and will) use other languages as well in the final game. Designers do not program in C/C++, they never have and they never will, but you cannot hire a frigging dev to code for every designer you have; and so you use LUA, Python and C#.

And by the way, in C# you can easily use contiguous blocks of memory (arrays) where you do your own allocation, and you pass around value types that act as pointers and that nicely access the "custom heap" with appropriate properties. At that point the speed difference between C# and C++ becomes almost negligible (5%). So spare me your bullshit.

Asshole.

Unity, which uses C# and works greatly on all platforms.

Apparently (my experience as well) LLVM does a great optimizing compiling final step.

.Net runs in the xbox thanks to XNA, and Unity brings C# (through Mono, not .Net) to Wii, PS3, iOS and Xbox.

You are an idiot.

Yes, but still, "in general" applies here. In this case C# and F# are the best choices (I have used both for XBLIG games and they can be fast at runtime and cheap in terms of dev time).

In other cases/platforms you will have other best choices.

In game development, the idea is this:
If you have 20+ devs, 3 years of dev time and 5+ million dollars, then great, go with C++.
If you have 3 devs, 3 months of dev time and 5 dollars to buy snacks every other day, go with C#.

Why should a language that is not the *best choice* for everything be the *best language*?

Suppose you have a very tight budget and little time and need to design an algorithm that must be correct or else you will incur in a grave penalty: C++ would be a very poor choice, and Haskell might probably be a better idea. Need to build a simple invoice management application for a hairdresser for 1500$? Go with Java or C#. Need to build an indie game to sell on Steam, the XBox and the iPad? Again, go with C# and XNA/Unity/MonoTouch.

The *best language* does not exist. The *best language for the job* does exist, and it is not just one.

...choose the tool that's best for the job, don't choose the job that's best for the tools you know already.

Game developers, for instance, are among the guys who write the most performance sensitive code out there, and they use a mix of C, C++, C#, Lua/Python for the various parts of the game. Usually the inner, tight loop is written in C/C++, higher level modules are written in C# and designer/modder scripts are written in a very high level language such as Lua. There is no best language in general, and whoever says otherwise is often an idiot.

As a university researcher in applied game development I pretty much work on abstracting and generalizing *finished* software.

I usually do this: I spend between six months and a year building a game according to some technique, framework or new language I am researching. The game is then finished, published and even sold. Then a paper is written describing the technique and its inpact. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This is just anecdotical experience, but in this day and age of shrinking research budgets it is not uncommon to find scientists who also package and sell their research.

So this whole "programmers are cool, they develop finished stuff while the other a-hole scientists quit halfway" is just a stupid generalization based on a superficial stereotype of academia. Also, THIS IS NOT NEWS, and even if it were it wouldn't matter.

Ok, I get it now.

Thanks for the explanation.

...it's only advantage is being Open?

I can see how many people may not see a great cost/benefits ratio there...