Before I’ll start to rewrite C# code that currently uses NET 2.0 features, I would like to ask if there are any near-future plans to upgrade iPhone Mono to use NET 2.0 environment?
Currently there are nice features in NET 2.0 (better XML and serialization support, SQLite!, Generics…) and it seems to be quite a big sacrifice to omit these if one wants to write iPhone “compatible” code to share with different Unity projects…
So, I just want to be sure, that after two months rewriting I don’t see the Unity iPhone upgrade with NET 2.0 suport… 8)
This is a total shot in the dark, but my guess is this has been a problem, mainly due to the limitation of Mono Ahead of Time Compilation previously not supporting generics. Though, with Mono 2.2 it sounds like full generics support is available. Maybe a member of the Unity team can give us some better insight, but I’m defiantly hoping for it. I miss my generic containers.
The current runtime lib already reaches the max of what you can have sizewise on compile if you have enough scripts. You can easily experience this yourself through iPhone Basic + System.XML
Perhaps for Pro
but the main breaking point here is size, not AoT. you don’t want your app beeing 30MB just due to .NET 2.0 beside the fact that it wouldn’t even compile.
During Unite 2008, I think I remember one of the really severe issues with .NET 2.0 for iPhone was generics of which we weren’t even sure that a solution exists at all (generics for AoT compilation - I don’t remember the technical details, but IIRC Miguel said that this is a tough nut, and when he says that, it does mean something ). Personally, I don’t need all of .NET 2.0 on the iPhone (“hey, look at my ASP.NET-AJAX based iPhone Web shop powered by Unity”) - but not having generics is kind of a showstopper for me.
Well, in that case, maybe stripping - or a subset thereof - would be included in iPhone Indie. I don’t believe UT would stop technological progress just because of an issue with their iPhone vs. iPhone Advanced licensing.
Given that the feature-diff of Unity Indie vs. Pro is changing significantly with 2.5 (not iPhone related!) due to the fact that some of the restrictions simply don’t make sense anymore when there is a Windows editor of Unity, I don’t see why that should become a problem if stripping becomes a mandatory feature to be able to use scripting properly.
Well stripping is right now the only real feature diff on the iphone.
So to me it would be a show stopper if Basic got it without Advanced haven gotten a fair amount of Advanced only features first (not only the obj-c bidirectional linking, thats a nice addition but I am talking about engine side things as well / mainly).
Because right now, the feature diff is definitely nowhere near the price difference and as stripping is still broken (or not fully working correct, there is a thread on that) I don’t see unity iphone getting basic anything like stripping in the forseable future (12 months), especially as iphone was mentioned to be on “low power state” until Unity 2.5 is out.
). Personally, I don’t need all of .NET 2.0 on the iPhone (“hey, look at my ASP.NET-AJAX based iPhone Web shop powered by Unity”) - but not having generics is kind of a showstopper for me.