The Future of Unity3D in Regards to .NET 4.6?

Recently Microsoft announced that .NET is now open-source. They're currently working on iOS and Android environments in Visual Studio 2015.

Now that .NET is open-source and is expanding to OS X, Linux, iOS and Android, will the Unity Team still be using Mono.NET?

I personally wouldn't mind seeing this step forward.

 

While that may sound impressive, Unity has twenty-two platforms they support. Microsoft is less than one-fourth the way there with .NET.

https://unity3d.com/unity/multiplatform

 

I haven't seen Microsoft saying they are working on bringing .NET to for iOS example? I've seen talk only about code support in VS but rest has been Xamarin partnership stuff meaning it's not free.

If there has been a change in this a link would be nice.

 

I'm aware of Unity's extensive platform reach, and I'm not talking about immediate change by Unity. Though, .NET Is available for use on any platform, the framework libraries just need to be compiled on that platform in a supported format.

Here's an MSDN blog post about the whole endeavor, its a huge step forward for the usually-proprietary Microsoft: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2014/11/12/net-core-is-open-source.aspx

This means that anyone can take the .NET Core source code and compile it on another platform, and BAM! .NET is now a framework that can be used on that platform.

 

Yes that's the very old announcement but AFAIK only one doing any work on iOS/Android fronts is Xamarin meaning you need to pay them to use their stuff. The Visual Studio stuff basically requires Xamarin subscription.

 

It's also worth noting that Unity itself is not programmed in C# only. A lot of the core engine is actually coded in C++, and other cross-platform friendly technologies. It's a sizable amount of the the front-end and scripting system that actually uses C#. That's part of how they've managed to get Unity on so many platforms, they only have to use Mono for compiling C# scripts, not the entire effort.

While the recent switch from C# being fully proprietary to being open-source is a welcome change, I wouldn't expect it to alter anything on Unity overnight. The most likely change you'll see is Unity dropping Mono in favor of vanilla C# in some future update. Once C# is running smoothly on Mac, there won't be any need for Mono. But this will just be a change in what they use to interpret and compile scripts, not in the core of the engine itself.

 

Visual Studio 2015 incorporates Xamarin into its libraries, and already has android development in the IDE. You do not require a license with Xamarin in order to develop in VS2015 on any of the mobile platforms. I'm currently using VS2015 for Mobile and Unity3D development.

I understand the Unity is built in C++. So is most of the .NET framework. Because .NET is open source now, we can compile the framework onto ANY platform since the source code is entirely C++, C and ASM. Obviously there are changes that have to be made between the platforms. But now that .NET is open source, there no longer has to be a middle man between Unity and .NET. Microsoft is currently working with Xamarin (they announced their partnership the day they announced .NET being open-source), perhaps MS will work with Mono as well?

 

That just sounds exactly the what they announced around same time with the open source that they partnership with Xamarin to include starter edition in VS. I haven't seen any news about change in that past six months.

 

I'm not that pro in coding to the point that i could say what is new in 4.6 other than few suggestions i get all the time from resharper, but what i can tell from those little suggestions, is that at least few things regarding 4.6 is nice to have and should be easy for unity to support, you know, things like eliminating the need for string.format, or changing a property to method body. why i say those should be easy? because at the back end, unity is compiling our scripts to the language it understands itself, am i wrong? specially with IL2CPP it will be much easier for handling these type of things. I assume the problem is not the scripts every new learner write, it would be pre compiled managed assemblies? or am i wrong?