Hey everybody,

For a long time, I've believed C++ to be the best language for game development.  Indeed, that may still be the case, at least in terms of its continued prevalence in triple-A development.  But for single or small devs (like us), spending hours, days, weeks-plus on wrestling with a language itself, rather than design problems to be solved, it just doesn't add up quite as well.

So, I've decided to switch our development focus from C++ to C#.  Mono, as a cross-platform C# solution, has definitely advanced very quickly in terms of what it can handle; that Microsoft is now actually assisting its development, rather than passively resisting it, is an excellent sign of things to come.

With the switch, I'm also giving up using Eclipse as my go-to IDE, and instead have opted for a couple more purpose-build IDEs - for things web-related, I'm using Atom (an excellent Chrome-based editor/IDE); for things heavily C# (i.e. game dev), I'm using MonoDevelop.  I've heard tons of complaints about MonoDevelop, and some may be legitimate, but there are far fewer than Eclipse, anecdotally.  Even with my couple months just tinkering with it, it just...feels better.

For those who will inevitably say Visual Studio is the best, I don't disagree.  However, my wallet does; and I need something that is usable without bankruptcy and the specter of Windows looming on every device I use - let's not forget that I am a Linux guy first.

I'm also shelving my on-again, off-again experiences with C++, which was one of the first languages I seriously learned.  But, since I use C# for my day job, I'm already well-versed in a bunch of good design and testing patterns, third-party packages, and tools.  I do like C++, just for it's nitty-gritty stuff (and nerd cred, if that's still a 'thing'), but the more I think about it the more my head starts to hurt from all the extra symbols, casts, and general busywork to do simple things.

I think this is a good move; even if the technology originated from Microsoft (ergh).

That's all for now.