Re: For beginners. Why is C# better than Python for audio game development
Having spent time in other dev communities that are more industry and indie focused, I can say that there are similar behaviors that crop up from time to time. On gamedev.net in the past you'd get a lot of industry or professional programmers, real C++ types, but they were often extremely hostile towards beginners and would repeatedly tell them to stop asking stupid questions or straight "give up" with their ridiculous and overly ambitious projects. It was definitely not a nurturing community for those starting out, and yes they had sticky threads for those who wanted to learn things, but people would still post the same beginner questions and similar things every few days. Part of the reason for this I think has more to do with the fact that in practice people have a tendancy to gravitate towards human interaction within a given social group rather than reading FAQs or looking things up. Think about it, how many questions here are asked on any given day that could just as easily be google'd?
Now by comparison Tigsource was a very welcoming indie space, ideas were encouraged and frequently shown off, and people would offer help and resources as needed. Some of the domain knowledge at the time though wasn't quite as deep as you'd find on Gamedev.net however, though it depends. Audiogames.net is more or less the place to go for audiogames, and I think its become a bit more nurturing over the past few years with an increase in domain knowledge and experienced developers. While there may be topics floating around about "which language is best" those are more atypical of beginners not knowing where to start given the wealth of choices available, analysis paralysis and all that. You could add FAQs and stickies, though i'm unsure if it would have the desired effect. The main reasons I tend to recommend Python, and i'm not saying its the perfect language for everyone or a univeral solution to every problem, is because its quite powerful, easy to use, has a ton of documentation to learn from, and has large communities to tap into for help, not to mention that I have over a decade of experience with the language and make a point to make myself available to anyone who has any questions or requires assistance. If people don't like python or find an interest in another language, go for it. Experienced developers will typically learn more than one language, they all have their strengths and learning one makes it easier to learn others, whats most important is what your comfortable with. The greater wealth and diversity of knowledge and experience we can build here, the better.
But, and i've said this before, asking or making pointed opinions on which language is "best" over another is a recipe for pointless arguments that accomplish nothing, its not productive. Its also especially counter productive to bash users of a particular language with baseless assertions, which only serves to discourage people and hurt the community. If you want to recommend your preferred language, then by all means, but be prepared to provide an even rational argument based on its merits and back it up with resources and assistance for those who decide to go for it.
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