What is the best software for programming?

I think Unity is a good engine to use, with good VR support, but it won't do everything. You'll still need a coding IDE, like Visual Studio, and a 3D modeling program like Blender or Maya.

Unity for beginners. Microsoft Visual Studio + DirectX for  gamers. Microsoft Visual Studio + OpenGL for serious scientific work. I work on scientific software (molecular structure visualization) in Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 + OpenGL. The same for a commercial project (cube mapped VR video playback).

OpenGL = serious scientific work ? Haha... I would say OpenGL = legacy teachers that does not evolve, have lunatic believing in free OS, and screw generations of future graphic programmers and searchers all over the world doing so :)

DirectX is as serious as OpenGL when well used, OpenGL is as crap as DirectX when people does not understand what they do.

For 3D modeling, my favorite is MODO, for texturing, my favorite is Substance Designer.

For programming, obviously, visual studio ( 2015 if possible for good c++ 14 ). For the graphic API on PC, as i work on games, as Husakm said, it is DirectX, period, past project was DX11, next one will be DX12 :)

To note that for serious stuff, right now, the pick should be vulkan versus dx12, and absolutely not GL anyway :)

If you do Windows, there is a big advantage to use DX over GL, nVidia and AMD are far more attentive to their DX drivers, this single argument is already enough to make your choice in practice :)

But as you seems new to this, i think you are confusing programming and making a game. If you want to do a game, you can just use an existing game engine, like unity or Unreal, most of the programming is already done for you, you can do most of the logic in script, and you can just code some extensions to your need. But you will not have to mess with all the burden of doing everything by hand.

cybereality said:

I think Unity is a good engine to use, with good VR support, but it won't do anything. You'll still need a coding IDE, like Visual Studio, and a 3D modeling program like Blender or Maya.

so how would Visual Studio, Blender, and the rift work together

@galopin, so using DIrectX how do you plan on running that large complex scientific task on the mainframe or computing cluster? You know the dedicated hardware purchased at great expense to be able to crunch those big numbers. In the real world outside your own Windows gaming needs, there is a reason why we still use openGL, openCV, openCL, openMP etc.

The fact that it is your only choice on these hardwares does not make it more or less a serious api. We use distributed build for tasks running on cpu and gpu all the time too, even if not on expensive clusters that's true.

GL was originaly a system to network lightly from a single server to many workstations that were more or less a monitor and a keyboard, see the paradox ? you are doing the exact opposite now with these clusters.

It is true that directx will never reach your hardware, it is not commercially interesting for microsoft, it does not means that GL is superior, it has several design flaws because of his age, so if you are working on serious stuff, be glad you get vulkan to ditch away that gl layer that is far from adapted to a modern gpu designs.

husakm's comment about OpenGL for serious scientific work is not stating that OpenGL is better than DirectX. If you want to develop scientific applications that run on the platforms you have, reuse existing tools already out there, or get a job working with a team developing scientific applications, then having experience with OpenGL is more useful and would be the best API to learn if that's what your field is. Someone just starting out will not be able to show up at a company/university and convince them to drop what they have and switch to DirectX. Perhaps if all the existing hardware out there were replaced and everything rewritten from scratch it might be good to use DirectX, but realistically that's not going to happen.

galopin: can you show me a single one application from chemistry area (molecular or protein visualisation), astronomy, solid state physic, quantum mechanic e.t.c. using DirectX ? I will buy you a bear if you will find one. Btw. on nVidia graphic cards both DirectX and OpenGl are translated to the same meta-code witch is finally executed so speed is identical. And in addition OpenGL does not need to wait on Microsoft with new functionality addition (due to the extension mechanism). I appreciate your enthusiasm for Vulcan, but in real world people often prefer to use what is good tested and easy to learn/use than the totally latest technology ....

pagan123 said:

cybereality said:

I think Unity is a good engine to use, with good VR support, but it won't do anything. You'll still need a coding IDE, like Visual Studio, and a 3D modeling program like Blender or Maya.

so how would Visual Studio, Blender, and the rift work together

Visual Studio is a coding environment / editor / compiler (C, C++, C#, VB, etc), you'd write your software using it.
Blender is a 3d modelling package, you'd make your artwork with it.

Even if you use Unreal or Unity, you still need a modelling package (Blender, 3ds Max, Maya, etc) and an editor (Monodevelop or Visual Studio are the common ones for Unity, but you could use any IDE).

@husakm I am glad i do not know a single one because i don't like beer, only strong liquor, and as said, those who develop that kind of app are not on windows platform so we cannot judge if it would have been better or not.

I think the soufflé felt too once someone point out that i miss read "serious" GL as opposed to DX for clowns that make my blood stop at first. You can find developer able to write wonderful optimized code with anything that solve a problem whatever the API and Hardware you have, but using a crazy computing cluster is not a joker for success if you have a team of broken arms.

As for the windows platform, i still maintain that it is a better choice to stick to DX, even if the underlying hardware is the same, the level of optimisation, debug, and care nVidia and AMD put into GL is far from the one for DX. I work for a video game big studio, hitting the metal of GPUs is my daily duty ( of course console are AMD exclusive, but we also put a lot of care into the PC ). 

Right Now GL and DX11 has hit the wall legacy, APIs are far from close to how GPUs have evolved (it is worse for GL than DX11, so my original post) and are sinking CPU and GPU performance into the tomb. Vulkan and DX12 came at the rescue, but like DX11 vs GL, your chance of problem with Vulkan are much higher. And DX12 is still a nest of bugs and performance issues, because it is young, best practice are not yet identified, and many code path are not yet optimised in the driver.

Even if DX12/Vulkan give more control over the GPUs, memory, synchronization and submition of work, it is far from being bare metal anyway, and if you are not doing a AAA games or a very intensive application that need to grind the best of the hardware, no need for you to jump on 12 and vulkan, stick to dx11 and unity :)