Should I pick 4.1 or stay in 3.5?

[jagged phoenix]

Hey guys I've recently finished the "Learn to code from zero" course and want to start prototyping 2D stuff, do you think is better if I pick up 4.1 right away or get more experience with 3.5 first?

Thanks!

[sour spear]

It depends a bit of your preference. Godot 4 has a better TileMap system, some more optimizations and stuff, but less online resources like videos.
On the other hand, Godot 3 has more resources (several yt videos and guides) but less fancy things like Godot 4.
Also, some methods are different on Godot 4, like instance(), which is replaced by instantiate(), or yield which is now await on Godot 4.

However, some people, myself included, recommend to stick around with 3.x if you're on your first steps as a programmer. That way it'll be easier for you to learn gdscript (Godot's language) and get used to its syntax and stuff.

In any case, Godot is not a hard language and I'm sure you'll able to jump into Godot 4 after a little bit of practice, if you decide to use Godot 3, of course.

[jagged phoenix]

you make super compelling arguments, I appreciate your feedback!

The way I see it is that it might be hard to adapt myself after the courses to 4.1, but in the long run it could be beneficial just to get used to the new "norm".

however most of the stuff I did cannot be reused, and has to be refactored

[sour spear]

If you want, you could watch some videos about the differences between both versions.
Personally, I wouldn't say it's super hard to adapt to 4 if you know Godot 3. The only issue is that you'd need to refactor your code and if your project is too big, then more extra work

The good thing is, that it forces you to learn some of the new methods and such. I learned several of them when updating my project from 3 to 4, for example

[jagged phoenix]

great, I mean so far I just have a super simple prototype using procedural generation from the course, so I'll give 4.1 a try then, thanks again!

[thin fog]

also depends on if you want to use HTML5 export. in my case i use gd4 and the problem is that it uses advanced stuff which (a) needs SharedArrayBuffers enabled on the website (itch supports that) but even with that enabled (b) it doesnt work on ios browsers.
So, if you want html5 and everyone should play it, i guess gd3 is a better choice.

[jagged phoenix]

thanks good take on the Browser version of things, hmmm this is actually important for me so thank you.

[thin fog]

maybe do a quick test with 3.5 and 4.0 and see if you get stuff running on your target devices

[jagged phoenix]

Yeah target is pc but having a browser version will allow me to get feedback fast