Recently, I have involved in a game development project that uses Unity3D engine which I had no prior experience. I'm trying to get comfortable with it now which maybe a topic for another post. This quick post is about the Boo language which is supported by the Unity game engine for scripting work. Other alternatives are C# and Javascript. I don't fancy the idea of learning C# coming from a Java and a slight no-MS background :), and I know Javascript well enough for this project. But the thing is, coding in Javascript is not much fun.... like coding in Python (for me anyways).
So I looked into the Boo language and found out that it is a Python inspired language for the .Net platform (Unity uses open source Mono platform instead of .Net). Boo defines itself as a "wrist-friendly language" (you can read the Boo Manifesto [PDF]) and the same property of Python was one of the main ingredients of that "fun" for me. So, I am thinking about using Boo instead of Javascript for this project.
There are of course some difference between Python and Boo as one can see from its Manifesto document, and many of them seem to be the changes in the right direction at first sight (first of all getting rid of that annoying 'self' construct!). But, since I have not analyzed the language in deep as of now, I can not claim anything further for now. The article named 'Gotchas for Python users' seems to be the best starting point for Python users like me.
So, what do you think? Is it a good alternative for .Net development?
EDIT: According to the Unity docs, "in fact, JavaScript [of Unity] is implemented in Boo"... Now, using Boo makes more sense :D
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