State of ECS & DOTS

@DreamingImLatios Thank you for the information and encouragement! Helps a lot in uncharted waters. Seems like I'm basically on the right track - just need to push forward and not be shy about asking for advice.

 

It looks like again tools here are confused what are for.

First of all DOTS is set of packages. Not just ECS. ECS is not multithreaded alone, nor is new in general development. For example Unreal develops own ECS solution. But is just ECS, so far by looks of it.

Unity ECS is optional. Jobs are recommended for parallel works. Burst is recommended for mathematical expressions optimisation.
Fortunately they work nicely together, with DOTS solutions.

Besides burst, packages are marked and shouted bold, as not production ready.
0.51 for 2021 will be released in few months time, so it is no big deal. It is much worse however for 1.0 and Unity 2022. Time line and breaking changes are undefined yet.

Many devs comes to use DOTS from years of experiance using OOP and whatever else. Mainly for performance reason. And should not be assumed, that ECS is primary goal here. As far I observe, many don't even use ECS, while using burst and jobs.

DOTS Jobs alone are 1000 times better in use, than System.Threading. This alone gives massive levarage to use DOTS packages.

Regarding moving to later Unity version, developers for years were locking game dev, from upgrading to later Unity version, to prevent potential issues, if it is an obstacle. It is nothing new. Neither an issue, if developing for desktops.

 

Is this still the case in 2022? -- Editor workflows with queries built-in perhaps?

I ask because of concept I've coined such as Lateral Programming, Dataless Tags, and ECS as a better OOP than OOP (thanks to its lean toward an early version of the Lateral Programming and Dataless Tagging concepts):



Lateral Programming:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/dat...-structure-of-a-language.819939/#post-7493389

Dataless Tags:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/dat...-structure-of-a-language.819939/#post-6101610

ECS as a better OOP than "OOP"

https://forum.unity.com/threads/dat...-structure-of-a-language.819939/#post-5807497



NOTE: The above is a slightly autistic brain-dump. I'm working on clarifying my description of these concepts (and this thread) over the weekend, so if you think to check back on Monday or Tuesday (at the latest), even a programmer should be able to read this.

Please do excuse my heavily global thinking, as it is a product of my slightly autistic nature. I do recognize it doesn't go well with programmers' thinking and information-gathering habits, but this was mainly something I made for myself to identify the concepts I need to iterate over when I had more time. This has been done elsewhere, so I'm going back in and cleaning this up a bit for anyone who would like to understand what I am trying to get across here. I know it looks like I speak an entirely different language, so I will remedy that for these important concepts.

 

Just wanted to verify if there is a projected release date for DOTs packages in Unity 2021 LTS?

 

Read the pinned thread. Ask questions when they're no longer within the right window.

 

Did you read the pinned thread? probably not since its approaching quarter 3...Reach compatibility with 2021 LTS: we are preparing a minor update to Entities, experimental Entities 0.51, that will make Entities and its compatible packages usable on both Unity 2020 LTS and Unity 2021 LTS projects. This update is currently scheduled for Q2 2022. More details will be shared as we approach its release.

 

Yes, we are approaching Q3 but we are still in Q2. Looking back, the 0.50 was released on one of the last days of its deadline, so I assume 0.51 won't be different.

 

It's out