I want to bind a different programming language to the Godot game engine. Is there an instructional document or video on this topic? For example, how was this project done: godot-rust. If I can learn the basics, I can succeed in working in a different language. Thanks.
In this answer I show you the different approaches to add language support in Godot 3.x (the situation will be somewhat different with Godot 4.0 and GDExtension - which replaces GDNative and hopefully means less custom builds), and I mention some languages that are supported by each of these approaches. However, this is not an exhaustive list of the languages.
First of all, Godot has official build-in support for GDScript and Godot's VisualScript (and Godot's shading language and its visual counterpart if those counts for you).
There are a few ways to use C++:
You can use it to create GDNative scripts (which are basically a wrapper around native calls that allow you to use them as scripts in Godot).
Or you can create modules (which are static libraries you can add in a custom Godot build).
And since Godot source is in C++, you don't have to restrict yourself to making modules if you are making custom builds.
In web builds Godot can interface with JavaScript via the JavaScript class. However, this approach does not allow you to add JavaScript scripts to Nodes, and so on.
Then there are languages that can only be added in custom builds of Godot, which is currently the official support for C#.
There are other non-official custom builds that offer language binding for languages such as Lua, Kotlin, TypeScript and JavaScript (this time allowing you to make scripts).
If you need to add a runtime, you would probably do this.
Some language take advantage of the fact that Godot's has official Mono support in order to support C#. This way you can, for example, use F# and Clojure.
They start by adding a C# project and then modify it so it uses another language. This is viable if your language already compiles to .NET.
Some other languages can be added as plugins that implement the PluginScript class via GDNative. This is the case of Python and Lua (again) which you can get from the asset library.
This is the most user friendly way to add language support to Godot, but it is limited to what you can do with PluginScript.
Addendum: Gil Barbosa Reis, author of the aforementioned Lua bindings, has an article series about its implementation stuffed away in the repository (in English and Portugueses): godot-lua-pluginscript/extras/articles/. It is probably the most comprehensive tutorial to date.
Other languages are added by means of taking advantage of GDNative (They basically mimic what you would do with C++). This is the case of Nim, Rust, D, Haskell, Go, Swift…
So that's how godot-rust works: make native libraries using rust and the godot-rust create and add them as if they were made in C++. For any language for which there are the means to make native libraries already, this is a good option.
Finally there is another way to add support for a language: a transpiler from that language to GDScript, which can be automated with an addon that might also be written in GDScript. This is the case of Lisp.
This last approach is mostly used for domain specific languages.
The official docs here provide your answer:
Godot officially supports GDScript, C/C++, C#.
Some 3rd party languages that can be used are: Rust, D, Python, Nim, and Go.
There are lots of oop languages, but I couldn't find any that has conveniences like garbage collection, but compiles natively to machine code. Sort of like between C and java/c#. One interesting language I found was Vala, but that's limited to the GNOME platform and is not that well-known
Go is probably closest.
But why on earth do you want it natively compiled anyway?
JIT compilation of portable bytecode has proved to be an extremely effective strategy. It compiles down to native code at runtime (so you get up to the performance of native code after the first few iterations) and it avoids the issues of having to build and manage platform-specific compiled binaries.
Are you thinking about C++? That is in high usage and can be compiled on nearly any (major) platform.
In the case you want to use an oo language that compiles down to native code you will "always" have to use header files and stuff as the elf format doesn't support oo (There is no class information in elf).In case you want to use classes from external libs you need to make the compiler aware somehow about the fact that there are classes, functions, etc. that are declared outside of your project. In C++ this is solved by the use of header files. So that's, I think, a major drawback in native object oriented languages. To resolve that issue a few tweaks would need to be made to elf/loader/linker in order to support the kind of features (like "linking" against "classes") you might expect. Even though mechanism for garbage collection could be implemented even in native languages. But that seems no good for os implementation.
There are C++ libs to do that for userspace apps like:
Boehm collector
Smart pointers
We have Bigloo.NET does anyone know of such a project that offers the same but for the Java and/or Objective-C language?
I am developing a component of a project that will also have a Windows and Apple GUI built around it. Would be nice if I could develop this component in a single language and have it compiled into the native language for the current GUI. Any ideas?
Do you know that Bigloo initially targeted the JVM, and only later the CLR? I'm assuming you do, and that it's insufficient for you. If you weren't aware:
Java code and Bigloo code can be
merged together. Bigloo functions can
call Java functions and vice-versa,
Bigloo code can use and instantiate
Java classes. Bigloo functions and
variables can hold Java values (Java
classes values). Bigloo data
structures can point to Java data
structures and vice-versa.
If that doesn't do it for you, but you still want a Lisp, Clojure is a Lisp, though neither Scheme nor Common Lisp. It shares with Scheme a single namespace for functions and variables, however, and I've found it pretty comfortable in my short acquaintance with it. Clojure is also Java --- anything you do from Clojure can be used from plain Java, and vice versa.
Maybe you could give more detail on why Bigloo doesn't work for you, and that could help us give better answers.
Schemes for the JVM: SISC and JScheme. Both are interpreters with good Java interoperability.
We have a business logic that works with the file systems on OS that we want to implement on both Linux and Windows platforms. The language we have selected is Python for Linux and C# for Windows. GUI is not a priority for now. We were looking for ways to abstract the business logic in a way that we dont have to repeat the business logic (ofcourse I understand since it is related to file system, some code will differ from platform to platform).
Any ideas on how to implement it? Is C/C++ the only option. We dont want to use Java.
Thanks,
Pranz
yea, pick a common language for the logic first. Punting down in to C/C++ pretty much eliminates any of the real values to development that the Python and C# languages provide. Done write, MOST of your logic will be "Business Logic" with the rest glue to external services (i.e. databases, etc.).
So, you should pick a portable environment from the get go. Dropping down to C/C++ and linking it in is a viable alternative, but most likely not worth the time.
Mono is an option you'll probably want to look into.
Quote from the site for easy explanation:
Mono is a software platform designed to allow developers to easily create cross platform applications. Sponsored by Novell, Mono is an open source implementation of Microsoft's .NET Framework based on the ECMA standards for C# and the Common Language Runtime. A growing family of solutions and an active and enthusiastic contributing community is helping position Mono to become the leading choice for development of Linux applications.
Either use Mono or Python.
Mono allows you to run C# .NET code on both platforms. Python can be executed on both platforms already.
Qt has cross-platform libraries for all sorts of things, including UI and file system. It does, however, use C++.
As already discussed in "Lua as a general-purpose scripting language?" Lua currently probably isn't the best scripting language for the desktop environment.
But what do you think about the future? Will Lua get so popular that there will soon be enough libraries to be able to use it like Python, Ruby or something similar?
Or will it simply stay in it's WoW niche and that's it?
I think it has a great future, a lot of projects are starting to adopt it for it's simplicity and usefulness.
Example: Awesome WM (Window Manager)
The project recently released version 3, incorporating a new configuration system completely written in Lua. Allowing you to literally write your configuration file as a program, loops, booleans, data structures.
Personally I love the syntax and the flexibility of such a system, I think it has great potential.
I wouldn't be surprised if it became more popular in the future.
Brian G
I suppose the answer starts with 'It depends how you want to use it...'.
If you're writing the common business app (fetch the data from the database, display the data in a web page or window, save the data to the database), Lua already has what you need.
The Kepler Project contains goodies for web development. Check out their modules to see some of the available libraries - there's network, MVC, DBMS access, XML, zip, WSAPI, docs...
As an example web app, check out Sputnik.
For desktop UI, there's wxLua - Lua hooks for wxWidgets.
ORM is conspicuously missing but that didn't stop people from developing in other languages before ORM was available.
If you're looking for specialized libraries - scientific, multimedia , security - don't count Lua out before you check LuaForge.
When it comes down to it, there's nothing in Lua's design that prevents general purpose use. It just happens to be small, fast, and easy to embed... so people do.
Uh? I would say instead WoW is a niche in the Lua ecosystem... The world of Lua doesn't revolve around WoW, there are lot of applications, some big like Adobe Lightroom (to take a non game), using Lua.
Lua is initially a scripting language, in the initial sense, ie. made to be embedded in an application to script it. But it is also designed as an extensible language, so we will see progressively more and more bindings of various libraries for various purposes.
But you will never get an official big distribution with batteries included, like Python or Perl, because it is just not the philosophy of the authors.
Which doesn't prevent other people to make distributions including lot of features out of the box (for Windows, particularly, where it is difficult to build the softwares).
Lot of people already use it for general system-level scripting, desktop applications, and such anyway.
There are more and more libraries for Lua.
If you are a Windows user, have look at Lua for Windows. It comes with "batteries included" (wxLua, LuaCURL, LuaUnit, getopt, LuaXML, LPeg...).
Very usefull!
It's 2017, 9 years after this question was first asked, and lua is now being heavily used in the field of machine learning due to the Torch library.
I really like it as an embedded language. It's small, very easy to use and embed and mostly does what I need right out of the box. It's also similar enough to most languages that it has never really been an issue for me. I also like how easy it is to redefine and add base functions and keywords to the language to suit whatever needs my application has.
I have used it in the WoW area but I've also found it useful as a generic scripting language for a number of different applications I've worked on, including as a type of database trigger. I like Ruby and Python and other more full-featured scripting languages but they're not nearly as convenient for embedding in small applications to give users more options for customizing their environments.
being comfortable as a shell language has nothing to do with being a great general purpose language.
i, for one, don't use it embedded in other applications; i write my applications in Lua, and anything 'extra' is a special-purpose library, either in Lua or in C.
Also, being 'popular' isn't so important. in the Lua-users list periodically someone appears that says "Lua won't be popular unless it does X!", and the usual answer is either: "great!, write it!", or "already discussed and rejected".
I think the great feature of Lua is, that it is very easily extensible. It is very easy to add the Lua interpreter to a program of your own (e.g. one written in C, C++ or Obj-C) and with just a few lines of code, you can give Lua access to any system resource you can think of. E.g. Lua offers no function to do xxx. Write one and make it available to Lua. But it's also possible the other way round. Write your own Lua extension in a language of your choice (one that is compilable), compile it into a native library, load the library within Lua and you can use the function.
That said, Lua might not be the best choice as a standalone crossplatform language. But Lua is a great language to add scripting support to your application in a crossplatform manner (if your app is crossplatform, the better!). I think Lua will have a future and I think you can expect that this language will constantly gain popularity in the long run.
Warhammer Online, and World of Warcraft use it for their addon language I believe.
I think it's hot! I'm just no good at it!
Well, greetings from 2022.
It is already a general purpose language. Today you can even serve pages using OpenResty, extend games, read databases or create scripts as shellscript replacements.
There are a plenty of libraries "modules" for Lua, many ways to achieve what you are wanting and Lua 5.4 is even faster.
The "extendable and extensive" nature of Lua, accostumed people to think it should only be used as plugin or extension. In Linux, by example, you can shebang a file with lua-any, make it executable and run like any system script. Or you can make a folder app like Python or virtualenv using Lupe. Lua 5.3 also gained impressive performance improvements.
Also there are many good tools like IUP to create native windows in Lua for Mac, BSD, Linux and Windows and side environments like Terra that lets you use Lua with its counterpart Terra and write compiled programs. Lua now, is more than a extension language, it has its own universe.