I see that the webpages of Monkey2 are just a standard templates now (lost domain?)
there is new project that he was working on? ( and and i don't think was WasmBasic.. freezed about 1 year ago )
there is a chance that Mark can re-join his most successfull project ( Blitzmax ) ?
Yep. And I'm visiting grandma for Xmas :P
Uuuuu, I can see that Brucey would love this. A lot.
Quote from: fielder on December 22, 2020, 09:00:07
I see that the webpages of Monkey2 are just a standard templates now (lost domain?)
there is new project that he was working on? ( and and i don't think was WasmBasic.. freezed about 1 year ago )
there is a chance that Mark can re-join his most successfull project ( Blitzmax ) ?
I heard he ran away with the milkman!
Dabz
Blitz languages had a good run.
Nothing lasts forever.
Quote
Blitz languages had a good run.
Nothing lasts forever.
Well yes, if the author ignores what his customers want!
"Nothing lasts forever."
I've heard MacDonalds burgers have had a good go though! ;)
Dabz
Quote from: Steve Elliott on December 23, 2020, 01:31:05
Quote
Blitz languages had a good run.
Nothing lasts forever.
Well yes, if the author ignores what his customers want!
Well, tell him that calmly on Twitter in 2017 got him calling me an Asshole and banning me. :)) Guess he was very sensitive on that topic back then.
Quote
Blitz languages had a good run.
Nothing lasts forever.
Well yes, if the author ignores what his customers want!
Well, tell him that calmly on Twitter in 2017 got him calling me an Asshole and banning me. :)) Guess he was very sensitive on that topic back then.
Haha, yes he would be very sensitive regards bugs and requests, and in the end very rarely went on the offical site to answer questions.
He would often add features and not fix bugs so for example, what was supposed to be a language that ran on Windows, MacOS and Linux, just became a Windows only language because it was broken on Mac and Linux! And that was his best language! BlitzMax.
may i ask what is
WasmBasic ?
Wasm is Web Assembly, so I would hazard a guess that it would use basic to compile a portable application. I've read that it's possibly the next big thing so could be interesting, but I've not seen a specific wasmbasic myself.
Quote from: GfK on December 22, 2020, 12:40:54
And besides, given that everything he's ever created has ended up abandoned - and that's some accolade - my best guess would be no.
Well, not really abandoned. He at least released the source code of his works, when he lost interest in them, so they are not lost, and other people can still continue his job and support it.
Many other authors wouldn't have had such a care, and would have just destroyed the sources.
I admire what he did
QuoteWell, not really abandoned. He at least released the source code of his works, when he lost interest in them, so they are not lost, and other people can still continue his job and support it.
Many other authors wouldn't have had such a care, and would have just destroyed the sources.
I admire what he did
Ditto :o :D ;)
MonkeyX - lives on in Cerberus64
Blitz3D - still compiles nicely here thankyou - if it ain't broke it doesn't need fixing - I use that to do some 'grunt' programming that I don't have the 'mojo' to get my head around some stuff in AGK. RemiD has something in the offing for the New Year.
Culling the blitzbasic forums was a shock though - at least Qube hosting them remnants here.
Blitzmax - haven't use it a while myself - however - let me compile within Linux (Within a virtual machine to boot).
Dip my toe into Monkey2 but my coding mojo was on the slide
BBasic2.1 - The language which I achieved the nigh on impossible with.... Last I checked it still compiled on my old Amiga.
Whatever he's up to, I wish him well for the next decade.
Quote from: angros47 on December 27, 2020, 00:14:14
Many other authors wouldn't have had such a care, and would have just destroyed the sources.
I admire what he did
Yep.. but he switched from requesting a lot of money (this was the major issue of Blitzmax for me) to giving it completely free.... just sell it at 10$ to increase "population" of developers .. and maybe after 1 year give sources to everyone... i know a lot of people not buying Blitzmax just for the price...
BTW i think that the end of forum was the major issue for Blitzmax...
Yeah, the forums vanishing was somewhat irksome, and the MonkeyX forum was a useful reference source. I appreciate your point of view Gfk.
The Blitz products are a bit like my Honda Estate, was great while it lasted but at 170000 miles and needing yet another steering rack (courtesy of Lincolnshire's numerous potholes) - might be getting chucked in the bin.
Can 't say the same for Blitz3D though - spent far too many hours compiling there.
AGK is my goto tool of choice the now tbh.
I remember having a quick play with Monkey and actually struggling with setting it up, I also could not get a HTML5 window size set up properly with a blank background.
Shortly after I moved to Japan and did not really do any programming (or at least new language learning) for a few years but when I went back to Monkey it barely changed.
It still felt weird and clunky, it was almost easier to go back to C++, or at least, setting up Monkey felt similar.
Then Unity came along and revolutionised compiling to all platforms. Like Blitzmax and then Monkey originally promised to do.
I owe my programming career to Blitz Basic and then BMax, it's quite sad to see how it went down hill. Making Blitzmax only 2D and never finishing that off and starting Monkey is I think where things started going downhill. It's all very sad.
Unity and UE4 are completely free to download and they are industry standard now, and with hours of people recording their desktops showing you how to use both Unity and UE4 and the thousands of people already using it. Why would you use Blitz Research projects now even for free when you could be using languages for free with more features and could be used to get you in a job in programming.
What chance did Mark ever have, even if he did finish something now? Against corporations of hundreds of programmers, he has no chance sadly.
In 2001 Blitz was the literally the best and easiest language around, times have changed though and things move on.
It's a tough world and it only gets tougher. it was great fun while it lasted, I am glad I was there in the final days of bedroom coding. many of you guys were there too, the good old days.
I wish Mark all the best in the future. It was great while it all lasted.
Mark only had one problem: himself. When offered support, whatever - he either refused or deliberately borked his code. I only came from blitz max onwards, but there are is some very knurled and badly done concepts that were never completed.
Being one of the few who actively went into his code, there is much to praise but so much bad crap deliberately wrapped up in it. None of the code is elegant, clear or documented. It is amazing that any of it actually worked!
There are howling bugs still present even in blitzing, little platform support. And when you really get into the murky depths. It's all old bb code with wrappers and wrappers and wrapper.
Would I give him a job - NO - his attitude stinks!
And yep. I paid for his beta products too, and patroon.
Quote
What chance did Mark ever have, even if he did finish something now? Against corporations of hundreds of programmers, he has no chance sadly.
I think there was a chance, he had a good load of followers on the official boards before he sorta dumped that in favour of monkey and its new site.
He could of gone the subscription model, paying for access to updates, access to the forums, he really really needed a better IDE bundled, the one bundled with all the products regardless of breed ended up being so stagnate its a wonder why the environmental agency was never called, I never understood why he didnt try to get Ziggy onboard, and Brucey, because ultimately, them two expand the life of Blitzmax for years.
The problem with Mark is that he wasnt a business man, he was a compiler writer, a good one, while thoughout the main Blitz's life, it was always product leader, but never market leader, TGC et all set their stalls up in such a way that, even with the threat of Unity type dev types available, they are still rocking it... Mark didnt, he let it go, making wrong decisions, listening to wrong people. Take Max3D, I remember a thread at bb.com where over 100 posts were like "Release the source Mark, we'll look after it"... He did, and, well, I think there was about 2 people had a go to make something of it, and even they died off. It didnt help that to build and maintain the thing was pissy, not the code, but setting it all up with CodeBlocks and all that... It just wasnt a nice thing to work, explore and expand.
Obviously once he dumped BlitzMax and the site, that was it, a lot of us followed to monkey, but give up, the bulk of his original community ran to Unity or other BASIC's, so, he lost all potential earnings from everything there, then he goes and does the same setup with monkey2, that turned everything into ashes really.
I think if he made better business decisions, he'd still be around, but, I sorta saw him as a hippy have a go type, so his outlook was completely different to say, Lee Bambers, and obviously being scared off by doing any sort of business due to Idigicon dealings, well, you can see why it declined to the way it has gone on that side, he decided to concentrate on syntax gymnastics within his languages, getting more distant with what BASIC is all about, while others prospered in leaving their BASIC's pretty much alone but pushing the game dev side of things forward with features people are actually bothered about... Like shiny graphics to eventually implementing VR capabilities, he did none of that really, he just made it all confusing to beginners in the most part, complete turn off, people looked then walked away!
Still, his life, his babies, his choice, now he has a normal job, its just a distant memory... And maybe, just maybe, he prefers that now!?!
Dabz
QuoteThen along comes MonkeyX, which you basically needed a Masters Degree in Fucking About just to get set up; download this, download that, and in order for those to work, also download the other... uh oh, dead link, edit this config file, run that batch file, copy this file to there... Jesus! And don't even get me started on trying to get it all to play nice with XCode - it was horrific.
Yep, there was that right enough! I think in trying to be all things to all devices maybe made it somewhat of a fudge to get to work.
Quote
This is exactly why he never understood why Idigicon gave away Blitzbasic for free on the cover of PC Format or whatever it was.
Yeah, pretty odd he couldnt understand that... That single demo made me buy everything, and I know I wasnt the only one, and lets not forget, it still wasnt the full package, you couldnt compile executables with it, if you wanted that you still had to buy BlitzBasic[PC], you still needed a BUID from the purchase to get on the official forums, but that single demo from PC Floormat garnered him fully paid users, a wealth of source code (As that was the only way to share your programs if you stuck with the demo).
Though from memory, I think the bad blood between the two ended up with BUID's for Blitz3D, and Idigicon still could sell it, but, after a certain amount of time, customers that bought it from Idigicon.com didnt get BUID's, I think that's right.
Quote
Yep, there was that right enough! I think in trying to be all things to all devices maybe made it somewhat of a fudge to get to work.
Yep, it was horrific that one, and it spanned from BlitzMax to monkey{s}, and when Vista came along... Pop! GLBasic had a system where you could literally compile every platform in Windows (Except iOS obviously, but the exported project was pretty much setup and good to go), it's single download contained everything you needed, then, they eventually split each platform into seperate zips that you just downloaded, unzipped and plonked in a folder in GLBasic's root... Simple... But Mark never went that route, as far as I can see, the vast majority of tools were open source and just needed to transfer a license over with them... It would of been no issue surely, if others did it... Well, why make your end users piss ball about, then down the road, change something which requires an update of the toolchain for the platform... Back to square one.
Quote
Ultimately I think his unwillingness to listen to anybody was his downfall.
I do think he listened to people, just the wrong ones, the ones that would lick his arse on the forums... Plenty of people, including myself expressed our concerns, and were back-heeled, with his little gang shouting the odds at the back... I had a major bust up with one, cannot remember his name now, but just because he suggested a splash screen or something he thought he was lord big balls... I was like "A fucking splash screen? Oh aye, cos that will make everything better you complete prat", beauty was, he was also one of them divvies who would be the voice of open source software on the forums, yet when I checked out his site, he had a couple of shitty little games for sale... So it's alright for the dev of the dev language you use to give their tools away, but you want to make money off your own creations... Fucking hypocrite... That wound me right up as well and I became Keyboard Warrior Champion for an hour... And then I got knocked down by Sibly!?!
Funny world, but there we are!
All in all, I think there was many things went wrong, one after the other... What he did was brilliant though, and as a programmer [half retired tinkerer kind of one], I still appreciate the skill he had, and again, appreciate the fun his tools give me over the years so I can be thankful for that at least... Otherwise, yeah, if he made better decisions, stopped with toying with syntax that made the languages look like others already out there (Which did it better) at the cost of the media side of things, flicked the hangers on away who were polishing his back chaff with their tongues and concentrated on what Blitz was all about originally... "Fast and easy games creation", he'd still be about with a good community behind him.
Dabz
it is a big mess which could have ended better. isn't it ? :))
anyway, still using Blitz3d for fun... or to test the logic for a procedure, faaast, before converting to another langage ;D
Yeah, thats pretty much sums it up Dave!
Dabz
Woah, Monkey2? I did not even realise there was a 2nd Monkey.
WTF, the first Monkey wasn't even finished was it?
Perhaps we can say that Mark Sibly started to go downhill after the bustup with Idigicon. Releasing Blitz+ as a separate upgrade to BlitzBasic was fine. But after splitting up with Idigicon there was nobody to push Mark to get things done, nobody to push him to get docs or at least have people helping him out on the stuff he had no interest in doing.
I remember finding BlitzBasic in Edge magazine and many other people got into 3D because the of the free 2D demo. All that marketing and promotion literally just stopped dead after that. All of that marketing was what got us a lot of here and made us customers for other Blitz products, there's no way I would have known about Blitz without any of that, that's for sure.
For me, almost every single game I have ever made is 2D. I love 2D, however Mark going the 2D route was not a good idea for the future of his products.
After Blitz+ and the bustup with Idigicon, Mark never touched 3D again.
You know, the thing that is a critical component of pretty much everything. Maybe he had a phobia of 3D maths? I dunno.
But promising 3D in Max for about3-4 years and then Monkey from the start never planned to have 3D at all.
That's kind of a bit backwards. Blitz3D in my opinion still is the best. Blitzmax is close, but let's remember how slow it was, especially when it first came out.
Also, you installed Blitz products and they worked instantly, the ide was amazing too, it even had docs for every command.
The docs in Max were pretty terrible, and then in Monkey not only were the docs but setting up was insanely complex.
Oh and I did I mention that neither had 3D?
Even by 2010 or so, 3D was just bare bones, back then, there were shaders and all sorts of new stuff coming up, not to mention people started to need online and network capabilities. And then there's all the online app stuff. Could Monkey do any of that? I haven't looked, but I would be surprised.
This isn't of course to shit on everything that Mark has ever done, I could do none of that. But the market changed rapidly, we suddenly had smartphones and freemium systems, back in ye old days of 2000, it was just Windows, and mostly just offline games. But yet my experience of Monkey is like worse than the original Blitz Basic, I would never have got into Blitz if I'd read about Monkey in 2001.
Oh, and btw
"MONKEY" ????
Who ever thought that was a good name, for anything. yes yes I know we have Python, and it is industry standard for various things, and we have Jaguar cars, Puma trainers etc.
But Monkey, it seems kinda like a joke name, a meme. As if you are not taking things seriously. At least "Blitz Basic" is a hint to what product it is.
Yeah, and regarding Blitz+ or even MaxGUI, one thing that struck me with them is that, well... Where was the visual form designer setup... There just wasnt one that got bundled with it, everything was code, which is fair enough, but not exactly rapid application development type setup you see with many of the competition, if you were making little things, little tools like simple tile map editors, then fair enough, but to be honest, it was no deal breaker and you could do that using bitmaps in the main graphics window, again, it was all bare, limited, yes a user came across with their own, cannot remember the fella now, think he was French, but, one should of been incorporated within the editor... B4x's visual designer is bloody excellent, even has a bridge to your smart phone so you can see what stuff looks like there and then...
Again, once it was put out in it's limited state, that was it, no new gadgets unless they were made by others, and, we'd have to wait years for Brucey to come along with his WX library if you wanted to do something with a lot more class.
Pretty much, a waste of time all in all, and as you mentioned, only existed really as a flick of the finger to Idigicon.
Dabz
How about this:
I remember talking with him about adding stuff to monkey2. no problem :)
It was about the predefined colors. I was using many more grouped into logical order (c64, vic, UI, etc) these gave direct access to all and any colors user could want.
He thought this was a great idea. and when reviewed the code (it was complete with all correct help doc, etc). complained about the name of one color - actually made fun of the name (which came from it's original source and not me btw), then the code, then refused to speak to me
There is a special place in hell for Mark Sibly!
My first foray into Blitz Basic was on the Amiga 1200, 512 x 1024 pixels (maybe 1200), PC s couldn't hold a light to that rez at the time :o
Then...... Next blitz product I tried was Blitz 3D on Amiga Format, I was blown away with what you could do in 3D.
Blitz Max was a job to get my head around, nevertheless got an indie spelling thing sanctioned by the now defunct BECTA. I never could grasp the need for 3D in Blitz max, after all.... Blitz 3D achieved most things an indie needs. Santiago's projects bear testament to that, and Red Oktobers sub games :D
And there's Bleak doing the rounds:
https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php/topic,8161.msg347047148/topicseen.html#new
I still use Blitz 3D to create greyscale heightmaps for an AGK renderer. Was easier to code heightmaps using existing code..... My brain was aching from attempting it in AGK. Limited coding mojo these days!
The rest...is history.
ooh here's another :)
I'm currently updating my linux version of monkey2. this is involved as I have to find the download, unpack, build
And here comes the fun part
- I patch mx2cc - so I can continue to use my code (because some SH*T deliberately changed the mx2cc code just because...)
now I need to update the std mod (patching all the feckin holes the same sh*t could be bothered with) so...
std, stream, filestream, pixmap, pixelformat, color, filesystem, audiodata
This brings std up to grade, adds missing stuff, augments other stuff and generally makes life a bit simpler... And then I move onto mojo and money then do a complete rebuild and with any luck it all works....
None of this is rocket science - but it just needed someone who cares and is willing to finish the job!!!
lets have some code and the patch and you work out WTF!
#rem monkeydoc Pointer visiblity state.
#end
Property PointerVisible:Bool()
Return SDL_ShowCursor( -1 )=SDL_ENABLE
Setter( pointerVisible:Bool )
SDL_ShowCursor( pointerVisible ? SDL_ENABLE Else SDL_DISABLE )
End
'jl added
#-
Property ShowCursor:Bool()
Return SDL_ShowCursor( -1 )=SDL_ENABLE
Setter( showCursor:Bool )
SDL_ShowCursor( showCursor ? SDL_ENABLE Else SDL_DISABLE )
End
#-
first task REMOVE THE FECKIN NEW LINES - every line gets another blank line!!!!!
I added the show cursor command as I could figure out what the command was and had to go into the code (via SDL) and what do I find but PointerVisible! that calls feckin ShowCursor. Come on, only a complete moron or someone who was 'deliberately and systematically' wanting to make things difficult would do that!!!
And it's one 'tiny' example of his 'superior' code.
I'm not sure - but that code stinks as does most of the code when you get into it...!
"None of this is rocket science - but it just needed someone who cares and is willing to finish the job!!!"
Thats what I was saying, he would put a product out, and then, just sorta leave it, unless of course, like Dave said, someone would want, say, anon functions, so he'd be quite happy to work on that, and then in a fan fair would go off with a new release and it'll be like... Hey guys, you can do this now:-
Function<int,int> blah = x => x * x;
Which, is just this really:-
Function Blah(x:int)
return(x*x)
End Function
Gerrrrrr innnnnnnnn!!! \o/
Though, if you went "Hey Mark, any chance we can have a DX9 driver for BlitzMax?"
You'd get "It's impossible to upgrade BlitzMax to DirectX 9"
Roll by a couple of years, and... Hey, a user has just wrote a DX9 driver for BlitzMax... Roll on a year or so... Oh look, that DX9 Driver is now officially in BlitzMax!
Same happened with 64bit, people asked for that, was told it was impossible, then, Brucey popped up and went "Here, hold my beer"
But we all know that when it came to some stuff, he just wasnt arsed!
Dabz
Quote from: Dabz on December 28, 2020, 08:15:38
Same happened with 64bit, people asked for that, was told it was impossible, then, Brucey popped up and went "Here, hold my beer"
It was the same story for Threads. Brucey had just released wxWidgets and some questions were posted about using wxThreads and testing each function to find out what was and wasn't thread safe.. all of a sudden, BlitzMax had Threads.
About the "listen at what your user ask", I have a doubt.
I think we all agree that the best product made by Mark Sibly was Blitz3D, don't we? Well, I personally liked it because it was simple. It was understandable. When I saw the demo, the first time, I was almost clueless about 3d programming. I didn't even know what was the differences between vertices and vertices coordinates. I knew nothing about keyframes, or about skeletal animations. All those terms, to me, were black magic, basically, advanced techniques used by studios. And suddenly, I had access to them, with a simple Basic code, that was simpler than a QBasic code. I had the same feeling that I had when I was a kid and I saw Gorillas, or Nibbles, and saw the basic code available.
In my opinion, that was what made Blitz3D great: how it made things easy, for beginners. And nowadays, looks like that role has been taken by Unity, and by Python.
Now, the people who were on the forum, and who asked for new features, were NOT beginners. They were advanced users, who had used Blitz3D for a while, and compared it with other tools and other 3d engines. What did they ask? They asked for more advanced features: OOP, shaders, and so on. All things that were supposed to make the language harder, not easier. Because they wanted new features for themselves, not to make things simpler for others. They asked a lot of features they saw in C++... so, the new language, BlitzMax, had those features, but was basically as complex as C++. It wasn't something good for newcomers.
I observed the same thing in FreeBasic: it is made by, and for, people who learned programming in QBASIC, but it's not designed to be appealing to new programmers, it's designed to be appealing to its current users. In case of Blitz, in my opinion, this approach has been a mistake, because the only people who were really interested in BlitzMax were the ones who had already bought Blitz3D: so, Mark Sibly didn't increase his userbase, he just made a new product that he could sell only to his current userbase. And by doing so he split his userbase in pieces.
Personally, when I discovered FreeBasic, and I saw how Blitz3D was being abandoned for BlitzMax, I had two goals: 1) trying to make FreeBasic do for Blitz what it did for QBasic: provide an open source replacement. Since FreeBasic was already pretty close to Blitz and to BlitzMax (besides the 3d functions), I tried my best to get MiniB3D (later OpenB3D) to work with it. I don't know if I managed to get some ex Blitz3D developer to switch to FreeBasic or not... but at least some BlitzMax users seemed to find my work useful
Also, when I tried to improve OpenB3D, I tried to add features that could be appealing for newcomers, that could make a complex task simpler: so, I focused on shadows, on spherical terrains, and on metaballs.
I have no idea if it was the right choice, or not... but I tried.
By now, the competitor is Unity, that features also mobile platforms. OpenB3D is not available for Android and iOs, yet. It has the advantage that it's free and open source.
Also, some 3d engines are offering Vulkan as backend: personally, I have looked at some sample code, and I really don't like it, since it seems to require thousands of lines to do things that old OpenGL could do in 3 lines. I am not sure if Vulkan will ever replace OpenGL or not (so far, it's not even supported on all platforms). But I have read how Angle already supports WebGL over Vulkan. I have also read that Apple has deprecated OpenGL, and it doesn't support Vulkan (since it uses its propietary driver Metal), but it still supports WebGL (also, Angle is being developed for Metal as well). Since OpenB3D already offers full support for WebGL, I hope it is ready for the future, and it won't become obsolete for a while.
My opinion is that what we need, now, is to get new people interested in 3d programming using it.
It's interesting that AGK still has some niche to survive. Obviously not everyone likes Unity/Unreal. Personally I tend to hate/love Unity, but my heart was in BB3D even though I'm pretty good in C++/C# now.
To be fair I think the Monkey project was a pretty nice move, WHEN you target cross platform gamedev. And I never found it hard to set up. Yes, you need to install the SDKs if you want to work with Android for instance but the same is necessary when you want to do it natively. HTML5 and desktop targets worked out of the box - well you need to have MinGW installed but come on that's probably standard?
I did not like the split of the communities and drop of websites. I offered him multiple times to cover the costs for those or to takeover his domains (I think there were others as well offered this) but he denied.
I'm happy that Brucey still keeps BlitzMax alive and Mikeheart Cerberus (formerly Monkey).
I think there would be still a market niche for a nice BB3D language. I never really got warm with AGK which has too many commands for simple things IMO.
Are you the same Xaron who, in 2011, started writing a Blitz3d replacement called BitsBasic?
Oh yes that's me. How young and naive I was. I still have it in mind to do it but I think the time window has closed as noone would need it anymore...
In the meanwhile I helped out a bit with Cerberus in the beginning (added gradle builds for Android and https support using curl for desktop) until Mike thankfully took it over completely.
Nowadays I do full time game dev mainly with Unity but still feel the need to create some BB3D v2. Not sure why. Probably Windows only would be enough...
@Xaron:
Quote.. HTML5 and desktop targets worked out of the box - well you need to have MinGW installed but come on that's probably standard?
Yeah, I'd some success with making a tcx file parser comparator in HTML5 as the target in Monkey, then MonkeyX. It's the file that can be exported from Garmin GPS training devices.
It's by no means all bad. It's a shame Blitz3D could not have evolved more, however with JV-ODE physics AND FASTLIBS it was pretty bloody capable at that. To name but a few I managed a Mario Fort block style tower, rendered in Wings I think it was, had my own articulated truck driving around with a Knight rider style car that came out the back..... And you could control both! Never would of dreamed of that on the old Speccy 48K. I'll stop now. ;)
Quote from: 3DzForMe on December 29, 2020, 08:53:12
It's by no means all bad. It's a shame Blitz3D could not have evolved more, however with JV-ODE physics AND FASTLIBS it was pretty bloody capable at that. To name but a few I managed a Mario Fort block style tower, rendered in Wings I think it was, had my own articulated truck driving around with a Knight rider style car that came out the back..... And you could control both! Never would of dreamed of that on the old Speccy 48K. I'll stop now. ;)
If I would be Mark I would have continued with BB3D or even BlitzMax. I've told him several times that it makes no sense to create a language which gets closer (Monkey) to Java/C++ and even much closer (Monkey 2) to C++. Because why should I use it instead of C++ itself then?
Basic definitely has its purpose. And with Monkey he lost quite some people not only because of the community split. He even banned me from the forums because I once said: Why shall I use Monkey 2 for desktop when there are virtually thousands of better solutions out there? Bann....
Quote from: Xaron on December 29, 2020, 07:52:54
Oh yes that's me. How young and naive I was. I still have it in mind to do it but I think the time window has closed as noone would need it anymore...
Nice! At the time I wrote an article about it: http://back2basic.phatcode.net/?Issue-%236/Blitz3D-Legacy%3A-History-Repeats (http://back2basic.phatcode.net/?Issue-%236/Blitz3D-Legacy%3A-History-Repeats)
Do you still have the sources of what you wrote at the time? If so, would you publish them?
QuoteIf I would be Mark I would have continued with BB3D or even BlitzMax. I've told him several times that it makes no sense to create a language which gets closer (Monkey) to Java/C++ and even much closer (Monkey 2) to C++. Because why should I use it instead of C++ itself then?]If I would be Mark I would have continued with BB3D or even BlitzMax. I've told him several times that it makes no sense to create a language which gets closer (Monkey) to Java/C++ and even much closer (Monkey 2) to C++. Because why should I use it instead of C++ itself then?
I guess the main point of Monkey was to make a single source that could support every platform (flash, Javascript, native codes of mobile and desktop). Unfortunately, to do that Mark had to target the lowest common denominator, and as result Monkey was extremely limited in features (only features available on all platform could be included).
And all that effort was wasted, because Flash was deprecated (so there is no point in targeting it anymore), and then NDK and Emscripten were released, allowing C++ to target also Android and Javascript, so now there is no advantage in using Monkey over C++ anymore
Quote from: angros47 on December 29, 2020, 10:37:42
Nice! At the time I wrote an article about it: http://back2basic.phatcode.net/?Issue-%236/Blitz3D-Legacy%3A-History-Repeats (http://back2basic.phatcode.net/?Issue-%236/Blitz3D-Legacy%3A-History-Repeats)
Do you still have the sources of what you wrote at the time? If so, would you publish them?
Well I had some stuff going, but that was kind of an Irrlicht wrapper I used as the backend but nothing compiler/interpreter wise yet. When I would do that now I'd probably use Raylib for everything and then doing an interpreter first and a transpiler second which translates the basic language to C which then is compiled using a modern gcc compiler for best execution speed. I think that would combine the best of both worlds because it could be debugged pretty nicely using the interpreter but runs lighting fast in release mode - one thing which AGK is lacking for tier 1.
Blitz3d was great and is still great. There are a few bugs (linepicks on terrain) and a few missing essential commands ( createbone, addskinnedvertex, setweight, (added by the updates B003 by Bobysait), custom blend modes, ... ) but overall easy to learn / use and fast and stable.
hobby / indie coders make me laugh, you want all kinds of features and effects, but most of you only make simple games / graphics...
I have used Unity for a while and it is often recommended to not use per pixel lighting or shadows or glow / reflections shaders on smartphones, so back at vertices lighting / shading and volumetric glow / flares and cubemap reflections, lol :P
However i admit that making games / apps for android is a must nowadays...
Quote from: RemiD on December 29, 2020, 11:14:50
However i admit that making games / apps for android is a must nowadays...
It depends. I did quite some games for Android the past years but the store is flooded like hell so I focus more on PC now. I think some BB3D for Windows only would be still neat, at least to begin with as render libs like Raylib are cross platform as well and it would be very well possible without too much effort to go cross platform.
@GfK: I agree that Blitzmax is more flexible indeed. In that regard you should like Monkey as well. ;) But you see, some like this, some like that, you never can get it straight for everyone...
Quote
I think we all agree that the best product made by Mark Sibly was Blitz3D, don't we?
No, actually. BlitzMax was a fantastic foundation that much, much more could have been (and to an extent, was) built on top of.
Yeah BlitzMax had a much better foundation and general syntax, unfortunately the 3D Engine never arrived and Mark produced something more Java/C++ instead.
Quote
The standard IDE was absolute dog filth compared to BLIde and IMO, it should have been bundled with BlitzMax as it made the whole development process much easier and much more professional.
Mark always liked to produce a comedy IDE with every language lol.
Quote
The Unity forum is full to the rafters of egotistical bitch-slapping morons who you daren't ask a question in front of - they think they know it all, therefore everyone else should already know as well. ::)
Perhaps a lack of maturity with some Unity users? There seems to be alot of stolen code in the name of frameworks and assets readily available to bolt-on to a project, and oh look what I've done, coding is easy! Well you didn't really do anything did you?
Quote
A lot of what made BlitzMax so accessible, was the "community"* itself - the forum was full of useful advice and bits of code so when the plug got pulled on that, Mark might as well have called it a day right there and then. It felt like a big fat "fuck off" to everyone's hard work and support.
A complete act of vandalism by Mark, and a disgusting way to treat loyal customers.
can somebody explain to me what is so better about Blitzmax that Blitz3d can't do ?
(except the cross platforms or external libs)
@RemiD: I think it was the modularity and kind of first attempts to do some OOP.
@Xaron:
Quote@GfK: I agree that Blitzmax is more flexible indeed. In that regard you should like Monkey as well. ;) But you see, some like this, some like that, you never can get it straight for everyone...
Yep, comparing Blitz3D to BlitzMax is like comparing a v6 2.3 Ghia Ford Sierra to the stock 1.6 pinto - oh, showing my age.
BlitzMax is flexible, Blitz3D is the 3D daddy in my book - married with IDEal 'UI', who could want for more. Errmm.. me I suppose, hence my dabbling with AGK - a great little tool with plenty of bells and whistles, that complements Cerberus in the Indie Mobile development scene.
Although I was late to the party with Cerberus - was running 32bit windows until my ginger box died.
This blog post by a fellow developer describes the path of Blitz products and Mark quite well even though being a bit older (2014 ?)
https://www.coolbasic.com/blog/tag/misc/ (https://www.coolbasic.com/blog/tag/misc/)
Personally I don't have anything against Mark, quite the opposite in fact as I still use Blitzmax full time (and special thanks to Brucey of course).
May he find the serenity and happiness in life..
-Henri
Ps. Maybe the last chapter hasn't been written yet ?
You Guys could make a Kickstarter of Blitzbasic V2(I know it is pipe dream) but AGK2 kickstarter made £33,000 out of it few years ago and I am sure Blitzbasic code would be much better than AGK2 and you Guys could make it happen one day as never too late to try it!
Here my Suggestions....
GUI For IDE - ZIGGY(He is Excellent and I am wondering where he is!)
Complier - angros47(or someone that you know can do...)
Documents - For two people to do that
I mean look at AGK 2 Vs Blitzbasic code example
AGK2
Setvirtualresolution(640,480)
//Create an image
LoadImage(1,"temp.png")
CreateSprite(1,1)
Do
SetSpritePosition(1,Random(0,600),Random(0,400))
Sync()
Sleep(250)
Loop
End
Blitzbasic
Const Win_Mode =2
Const Press_Escape=1
Graphics 640,480,16,Win_Mode
Pic=Loadimage("temp.png")
While Not Keydown(Press_Escape)
Drawimage Pic,0,0
FLIP
Wend
End
I know which one I would prefer....
IF there is Kickstarter of Blitzbasic V2 or whatever Basic language is and I would be happy to backed it and I am sure you will....
Quote
I think it was the modularity and kind of first attempts to do some OOP.
ok... OOP is not necessary to make a good stable program, and personaly i don't need it...
and what do you mean by "modularity" ?
(Blitz3d can also have includes and use external libraries.)
anything else ?
Quote from: Hotshot on December 30, 2020, 00:10:25
You Guys could make a Kickstarter of Blitzbasic V2(I know it is pipe dream) but AGK2 kickstarter made £33,000 out of it few years ago and I am sure Blitzbasic code would be much better than AGK2 and you Guys could make it happen one day as never too late to try it!
Seriously I think that wouldn't lead to any results. The AGK guys had already a track record so it's more easy. Plus Kickstarter creates quite some pressure and 1000 people have 1000 opinions how it should look like. ;)
QuoteHere my Suggestions....
GUI For IDE - ZIGGY(He is Excellent and I am wondering where he is!)
Complier - angros47(or someone that you know can do...)
Documents - For two people to do that
Yeah sounds reasonable. Actually I don't think that there is a real market for it money wise. I mean I could give it a try (again) but this would be most likely open source stuff and for free. I'm in the lucky situation to work for myself full time anyway so I don't need that as an income (I still have that name BitsBasic in mind ;D).
On the other hand there is already Cerberus which comes pretty close to what BB3D did (minus the 3d thing but that's being worked on).
@RemiD: With modularity I mean that you could create any modules for it and the community did quite well with that.
Not to sound pessimistic, I'd just let it go, its still rolling with Cerberus and with Bruceys NG... They seem to be filling in existing needs really, and doing a fine job, yeah, you might get one or two new users coming through, but to make it shine again is just far too much even just to make someone have a passing interest... It's not worth it if you ask me, complete rebuild of the main tools isnt the only thing, everything, literally everything needs its arse dragging up to modern standards, and, official modules should and would need them little extras too... MaxGUI say, it will need a decent visual editor, noone wants to faff about with gadgets in code anymore, having to edit,rebuild and run the app constantly to see if that button is just right on the form. If your targetting mobile, you'll have to have some sort of bridge to see the results instantly like b4x has. So there is a clump of work just with that, and it'll have to be maintained as well... All of it!
Then we have marketing, one of the main reasons Blitz fell on its arse, it no good having John Smith, who does nights in a BP garage to sort that out... You need a company involved, or at least someone freelancing and knows the ins and outs, that'll cost, that is a shell out, and no kickstarter has ever been successful really when it comes to payrolls, your gonna need some money upfront for that alone, as their first job will be indeed "The Kickstart Campaign".
Only thing I can see not being a problem is web design, most of us here can do a bit, some more advanced then others, but, you still need to get the brand out there, no good having an all singing and dancing site sitting with a snazzy domain name just to be holed up in a corner of the net somewhere waiting for anything other then a search engine bot patrolling the pages.
Its alright saying "Oh, just do this, and this and that", great when its rolling off the lips... Many life lessons myself have made me realise... Nothing is easy, to do something right and give it a fighting chance, you've got to do it proper, and realistically... Clumping a bunch of randoms together with their own ideas instantly makes it a none starter, and I'll admit, I'm the worlds worst in getting bored with a project... I'll be like "RIGHT, LETS DO THIS SHIT", war paint on the mush, a big old Braveheart "FREEDDDDOOOMMMM", fortnight later, I'll be like "Cannot be chewed"... I'm a terror for it, I know I am, and the thing is, so are many many other people!
You need a team with a clear direction, a professional setup, people that are good at what they do, dedicated, and will go about it all professionally... In the most part, because they will be getting paid or, there is a financial reward at the end... Thats how it works.
Use whats available now, or just simply... Let it go.. And if someone cannot, then, let them put their money where their mouth is and say "I've got £20000 [And thats being, well, tight] and we'll produce something that is actually viable for a real kickstarter campaign, to take it to the next level.", see if anyone takes up the offer.
And, well.. Not gonna happen is it! :D
I do hate to be blunt, never enjoy being the voice of reason, because, well, I like being the idiotic daft one, but, it is what it is...
Dabz
There already is a Blitz Basic V2 :-)
https://github.com/nitrologic/blitz2 (https://github.com/nitrologic/blitz2)
-Henri
Lol, where's the setup.exe file though? ;) hehehe
Notice after my little whatsit post the Amiga sequel, as it is, contained a GUI editor! :D
So Mark thought it would be a good idea to bundle one with the Amiga, but never bothered with B+/MaxGUI!?!
Dabz
I think jsp did an excellent job on a MaxGui editor with his LogicGUI (even though the website is down I believe he is still around), so at least that base is already covered.
On the IDE side there is still some work to be done, but some good alternatives exist like the vscode with Bmax plugin and markcwm's version of MaxIDE found here https://github.com/markcwm/maxide (https://github.com/markcwm/maxide)
On the 3D side there is the OpenB3D by angros and the Bmax wrapper for it by markcwm (and maybe RayLib ?) I do not use 3D at all so I can't really comment on those other than that they look cool :-).
-Henri
Hmm, without dissing the work on maxgui and maxide
We are in 2020 NOT 2000. those products were not that good at the time. now however they are completely unusable. you can't compile for NG without lots of work. scintilla is win only, etc, etc.
The world has moved on. To be in anyway relevant, the ide and basic functionality needs to be able to match with Unreal, Unity, etc.
MaxGui is 'frankly" a joke these days.
Even BlitzNG is hugely undocumented and by default uses a version of MaxEdit that is just 'pants'. Getting it setup is also not a simple task (for the average joe).
Let's assume that all of this was taken care of - you are still left with an old product with it's feet firmly in the past. Where's Vulcan, Metal, etc. Where are the new proper cross platform code and binders. And where is the steam/appstores integration, etc
Psst. what to use it and know how everything operate - you're stuffed because nothing is documented - or docced so poorly as to not really make much sense anymore.
Don't even start with the new shift from x86 to Arm, etc.
Oh blitz3d was the ace - yep in the last century maybe. But even then it was and is soo poorly documented that it's unusable. E.G. what is a skeleton, how does it work, how do I get it integrated into a 3d model, etc, etc. Shaders - forget it... Blitz3d is deader that Green A-Line Flares!
20 years ago - ok maybe - but today...!
What is MaxEdit ? You mean MaxIDE ? If so then yeah that is just basic IDE without any whistles. Scintilla itself is a multiplatform by nature though and I believe the version that comes in the MaxGUI folder should be useable for all. The link for the MaxIDE version that I provided has a Windows dll for scintilla properties like suggestions, so that part is Windows only, but MaxIDE code itself is multiplatform so making it operate in Mac/Linux shouldn't be that hard if someone was motivated (I do not own a Mac and not planning on getting one either).
And as for basic setup it really should be just download the official release and just have a go at it. The trouble usually comes when you want to use other 3rd party modules not officially supported. My experience has just been in Windows platform only so maybe its pants in others ? Microsoft has always been hell bent on retaining backwards compatibility.
In any case, Blitzmax doesn't have to be Unity or Unreal because what would be the point ? If people liked that kind of environment they would surely be better off using those, but I suspect that not all do.
Blitzmax as it currently stands is an open source project and its development is depended on the people around it. If someone wants something really bad they usually get it..
-Henri
Ps. I feel that I have to say some good words about MaxGUI so that its not all negative: It is very well documented, simple for beginners and works (I have some old programs that use it and I update those still, even though wxMax is my choice now as its for more advanced users :-)).
QuoteI think jsp did an excellent job on a MaxGui editor with his LogicGUI (even though the website is down I believe he is still around), so at least that base is already covered.
Its not covered though, as separate entities, yes, all well and nice, top jobs, but you really need the two combined, if your going to have something like a MaxGUI mod, then, its only natural you would find a visual editor within the main IDE, where, you could just "click" open the visual editor, have a tinker, generate members into your main project within the IDE, which gets picked up by an intelli-sense engine and your good to go, no mucking about with "exporting to file", which you include later, have the development environment update everything for you on the fly.
To me, that is an absolute minimum for any development tool that provides access to GUI elements... Split 'em up, and I'll use something else... And there it is... One thing, out of so many as well, and I'm out!
I imagine its the same for a lot more people as well... I just dont want the chew, because there really is no excuse now to have one with other tools making life so much easier on that front!
And I'm not on about Unity or other pointy click dev tools... I'm on about good old fashioned BASIC's which do require you to do what most of us like, just banging code out, but, they remove the tedium bits, and to me, GUI design is tedious enough with an visual editor, never mind having to create, manage children and edit gadgets properties in a text editor... Sod that! :D
Dabz
So, if MaxIDE (or similar) had that element, that would do it for you ?
-Henri
Quote from: iWasAdam on December 30, 2020, 14:03:07
To be in anyway relevant, the ide and basic functionality needs to be able to match with Unreal, Unity, etc.
I strongly disagree. I mean you're right, the IDE has to be fine, but there is Visual Studio Code which could be setup somehow easily. Regarding Unity I think it's a bloated beast, I don't want to use a visual editor, I want to code. Call me old school. ;)
Yeah I can't get on with Unity and it's known for being bloaty and pretty slow. Why try and complete with something like that? Different customer base.
There are so many ideas, so many proposals... this is the issue of many community based projects: fragmentation. Someone suggests OpenB3D, someone else suggests Raylib, and so on
I have seen similar issues in the FreeBasic site, in the past (and I also remember the endless discussions, and some trolls taking advantage of that to try to advertise their own projects). I have already said, in the past, what has worked for me as a replacement for Blitz3D: FreeBasic+OpenB3D. I know that I am walking on thin ice, now: in the FreeBasic forum, I was bothered when other people came and suggested to use different tools as FreeBasic replacement, so, if my suggestion bothers anyone, feel free to tell me, and I will stop.
The original MiniB3D had a lot of people who extended and improved it: Simon, Warner, Klepto, BlaBZ, AdamRedwoods. Each one made their own custom version: Simon made the "vanilla" one, Warner added quaternion and terrains, Klepto added shaders and shadows, BlaBZ added several post processing effects, AdamRedwoods ported it to other platforms... and that was the real issue: each version was incompatible with the others: if I wanted at the same time quaternion rotations, and shadows, it was not possible.
So, most of my efforts were focused in putting all those improvements together: I thank all the people mentioned, if they are reading this.
My point is, in general, that if we want a sort of "Blitz3D v2" all useful efforts should be put together: and I know it's not easy, because I am not even sure if we all want the same kind of product. I have my own ideas, and other people have their owns.
One thing that I think we need is new people: what made Blitz3D successful was the community that loved to experiment, and created a large code archive: there were thousands of fascinating examples, from neural nets to procedural cities, that encouraged people to learn more, and to try to make even better. Now, that community has shattered: and most important, what remains of it is shrinking. So I think we need something that could attract new people, just like Blitz3D did in the old times. Something that offers the ability to make people say "Wow! You did it yourself?", to a proud newbie who is showing their first 3d game.
Blitz3D worked "out of the box". You installed it, you loaded the first demo, and by pressing a key, it worked. And the language was immediately understandable. Today, I am not sure if the languages we are using (FreeBasic or BlitzMax) are so immediate. A lot of people in the web keep stating that Python is the new "basic", the language used to introduce people to programming.... I have no idea if that's true or not. But, in doubt, I cobbled together a Python header, so if the future is that, a Python-B3D hybrid is possible.
Since nowadays there is a lot of hype about mobile gaming, an useful feature would be the ability to compile to mobile devices. I read how, to compile C++ to Android, one would need to first install and configure the whole Android SDK with Java (even if Java is used only to make a simple wrapper), and then to install and configure the NDK, before being able to even make a "hello world" example. And for iOS it's even worse. I have also heard of Cordova, that can convert webapps to native apps (perhaps a game compiled with Emscripten could be turned into a native app?). Anyway, I have no experience about mobile developing, anyone here knows more about it? If anyone is interested in trying to compile OpenB3D for Android, please let me know.
Last but not least: Xaron mentioned the idea of an interpreter: that would surely be useful, a simplified version of a basic language, used to learn programming: would you like to elaborate your interpreter idea more?
Here are some 2-cents from one of the guys who is maintain a basically free tool that some of you and others use... to some it up.... everybody drop your coding tools and move to Unity or UE4 if you like C++. ;D
This way us support devs can use our time better to work on our own stuff. Has a nice ring to it, right Martin? :P You did the right thing when you dropped CX.
But keep in mind folks that a free tool like Unity only gets you that far when they need to pay they investors. The other day I was visiting the Unity website again after a year or so.
Looks more now like a business page than something that is used for games. And I can smell that it won't be free much longer.
Imho the middleware market of game dev tools is about to change in the next 1-2 years.
Who knows what will happen to UE when the case Apple vs Epic runs through the court finally. Without the Macos platform, they will become way unattractive to the folks who think cross platform is the shizzz, who dream of the golden nugget in the app stores.
Unity needs to rake cash in for its new investors and stock holders. And so a lot.
Godot's funding will run out, I am 100% sure they won't win the lottery again when they got the grant from Epic.
Purebasic is more a love project for Fred than a commercial endevour these days. And you can see that in its updates. He moved to the east out of love and supports his life with a day job.
AGK is only supported further because TGC's Car driving instruction apps depend on it. And that is where they make their money. Not with AGK nor GG. AGK is currently threaded like a second cousin. Wonder how much longer they will support it. And how much longer it will support they payroll.
From all these commercial tools, GameMaker seems to the be only one I can see a good standing in the next year or 2. It's company has a gaming background (Casino apps) and quite some staff to support all the platforms they are targeting.
Then you have the free tools...
Raylib, that small funding he secured will run out next year. It is basically windows only, it won't get vulkan or metal support.
SDL2, I never know if Valve will drop it or not.
Urho3D, BFGX, OGRE3D and the likes... way over bloated with features. Sure open source but who seriously can dig into this and modify it without frying they brains out.
Sokol... recently got a lot of updates and imho sometimes your code breaks. Flooh told me that it is only a hobby project that he uses for his emulators. He would hate it if he was bound to watch out if his changes break anything. It also lacks on the input section big time. But I still cosider it for our new backend to get Metal working. Unless I get MetalAngle running. So far no luck here.
FNA... now its dev is full of himself. I was considering this as a backend for CX but there is no support imho, only a bunch of self loving elitest on their Discord.
Blitz3D-NG, its developer told me that is only a pure hobby project and he only works on it when he wants to, so no motivation. He told me not to use it for commercial projects.
BlitzMax-NG I can't say much about it. Didn't follow it. Only know that it uses the Monkey methology to support cross platform. Not sure how motivated Brucey still is.
Cerberus X, I won't say much about it for obvious reasons. Only that as long as there a some devs using it, I think I will continue with its development. When I see what I need to work on in the next year (Metal support, 3D, GUI, Macos support for IOS apps, Android app bundles, updated SDKs, making the IDE run on Silicon, new examples, etc. etc) I would love to drop it and run away.
But and that is a big one... I have a hard time letting people down!!!
Again just my 2 cents. It always amazes me how much you guys spent time to discuss about which tool is the best and which is crap. When did you work on your last game again? Did you release something into the stores yet? Ever? Use the fricking tools that are there NOW and use the one that fits your needs the best. Support their developers! If you keep searching for the next best tool, you will do just that. And keep ranting about how shitty some tools are because you can't use them they way you think it should work.
Have a save jump into 2021 and stay healthy everyone.
Michael
Quote
It always amazes me how much you guys spent time to discuss about which tool is the best and which is crap. When did you work on your last game again? Did you release something into the stores yet? Ever? Use the fricking tools that are there NOW and use the one that fits your needs the best. Support their developers! If you keep searching for the next best tool, you will do just that.
i totaly agree ! i posted a similar thing some years ago on blitzbasic.com lol
i am happy to have continued to use Blitz3d (even if i have experimented a little with dark basic, blizmax+minib3d, unity, ...)
now i manage to achieve results quite fast, compared to have to relearn everything again and again
(however i have lost the desire to make games a while ago, this is another issue :)) )
personaly i don't think that shaders are necessary to make a good game (or a good app), the graphics style / consistancy, and the gameplay / ease of use are more important.
Quote
I don't want to use a visual editor, I want to code.
yes
Quote
Why try and complete with something like that? Different customer base
and yes
Quote
what made Blitz3D successful was the community that loved to experiment, and created a large code archive: there were thousands of fascinating examples, from neural nets to procedural cities, that encouraged people to learn more, and to try to make even better. Now, that community has shattered: and most important, what remains of it is shrinking. So I think we need something that could attract new people, just like Blitz3D did in the old times. Something that offers the ability to make people say "Wow! You did it yourself?", to a proud newbie who is showing their first 3d game.
totaly agree!
in 2021 i am going to have more free time, i am willing to create a few demos for Blitz3d and convert it to Blitzmax+OpenB3D, (if somebody cares lol ::) )
Quote from: MikeHart on December 30, 2020, 17:33:30
SDL2, I never know if Valve will drop it or not.
Urho3D, BFGX, OGRE3D and the likes... way over bloated with features. Sure open source but who seriously can dig into this and modify it without frying they brains out.
Some how I cannot see Valve dropping SDL2 in the near future, especially after Valve's Sam Lantinga recently adding support for XBox X and PS5 controllers.
Plus it's possibly the best cross platform HAL library set out their, with the exception of SDL2 Mixer audio issues.
As for Urho3D etc. They are trying to be a more all-in-one solution engine library. Writing a language binding API would be a bit of a task without everything being well documented.
Speaking of BFGX, any news from Ferdi?
Well, it is horses for courses, and opinions do differ wildly!
Quote
So, if MaxIDE (or similar) had that element, that would do it for you ?
If MaxIDE had the same quality as say, B4x's IDE then, maybe would be handy, but I'm using MaxGUI as an example, its not just about a visual editor, B4x has a hosted Mac option where you can build for iOS without owning a Mac, and you can even submit it to the app store from the IDE as well.
So already, in my eyes, a MaxIDE with a visual designer is already not in spec with what other IDE's out there can do!
So in this sense... For me, and not to sound selfish or spiteful, but for me, it still wouldnt be a tempting offer to move my project I have now over (Which to be honest, is a little plaything, with a decent amount of potential) from B4x!
And this is my point, IDE's are moving forward with features that are, well, bloody handy, theres a lot of catching up to do, granted the Mac thing is tied to a service, but it still is a service that I may use, and I dont have to jump arse over tit to use it.
Dabz
Well said Mike, so in other words, elgol takes over.
Quote from: Steve Elliott on December 31, 2020, 02:26:30
Well said Mike, so in other words, elgol takes over.
Whatever fits your needs.
Quote from: dawlaneSpeaking of BFGX, any news from Ferdi?
I had contacted Ferdi a few months ago. He was to busy with other things to continue his port and mentioned that it would need a rewrite to a native solution. His use of databuffers was a bigger hit on the performance.
Quote. Have a save jump into 2021 and stay healthy everyone.
Michael
Ditto, jump carefully if you're out and about folks, it's slippy here in the U of K.
Have a great 2021 folks, whatever tool you choose - Happy coding. For the record, my current No. 1 tool this year has been AGK Studio ;) And they've got some great offers on at the moment if you fancy taking the plunge.
As I think it was Mike said, support your tool of choice. The great thing Blitzb. Co. UK had was oodles of examples from the community. Thanks to Qube we can still access them, cheers Qube :)
Back on the question, seriously, what happened to Mark?
I'm quite sure he has a Twitter account (but I can't find it anymore).
Nothing on Patreon (it seems).
@degac: https://twitter.com/blitzmunter
lol "Cagey Kiwi Coder". Seems apt. :P
Plus he has a website with a blog: http://www.marksibly.com/
@Xaron: Thanks!
Sorry about my language skills. That is what I ment.
Quote from: GfK on January 03, 2021, 15:32:21
Quoteeverybody drop your coding tools and move to Unity or UE4 if you like C++.
Don't move to Unity if you like C++. It uses C#.
Quote from: Xaron on January 03, 2021, 12:23:26
Plus he has a website with a blog: http://www.marksibly.com/
well this is something new :)
so... he switched to Manjaro.. and playing games on PC and PS4... not good news... blitz research is probably died.
Quote from: fielder on January 06, 2021, 10:31:55
Quote from: Xaron on January 03, 2021, 12:23:26
Plus he has a website with a blog: http://www.marksibly.com/
well this is something new :)
so... he switched to Manjaro.. and playing games on PC and PS4... not good news... blitz research is probably died.
Well... some post above people claiming that Mac and Linux version of BlitzMax were bugged and not well supported.
Now he posts to be switched to Linux and this is a bad news!?!?... mah...
about playing games: I'm quite sure this is not a news at all... he played always games.
lol, yeah I thought it was shit too. :))
Quote from: degac
so... he switched to Manjaro..
this mean ... no commercial intent.. no money.. no blitz research...
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He's after my "website of the year" award, which I keep getting emails about saying I've been nominated!
To be fair, I've seen better on Ceefax... And Sibs isnt too grand either! ;) hehehe
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this mean ... no commercial intent.. no money.. no blitz research...
No intention of anything other then, well, just doing his thing... Fair play to him really, think he knows the glory days are long gone!
Back-slapping hate-club much?
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Back-slapping hate-club much?
Not so really James, just opinions!
I know you were close in some ways over the years with Mark, and heavily involved in a lot behind it, but don't take opinions personal... Blitz was a product, like many others, its was sold, to customers, now yes, there was no contract involved, no guns pointing at heads, but it was how he wrapped it all up that have got people... People did use it for bread and butter, I bought everything he ever brought out post Amiga, and, the way it went, it was a bit of a FU if I'm honest, and I never made anything commercial using it, with the language of that particular setup going to GLBasic, because believe it or not, Kitty Hello was and is indeed more approachable then Mark ever was.
So, yes, I do understand why you feel this is a bit of a "hate club" thing, but it isnt, its just a bunch of people, customers, who are discussing what it meant when Blitz was ultimately pulled away from under them, and as it seems, it all ended on bad terms between him, and his customers... Your his mate James, we arent marra, we are just his ex-customers... Its that simple, and I do hate to be that blunt, but... It's the way it is isnt!
So, dont take it personal matey, you neednt!
Dabz
Mark generated some awesome coding tools, which still cut the old mustard.... On that positive note, thread lock? Not the shite green type, red or blue at the very least.
Have a good year peeps, and as ever, Happy coding😁😍
QuoteBlitz products are the reason I haven't needed a "real" job in 15 years.
QuoteI put all my faith in BlitzBasic, Blitz3D and BlitzMax, and honestly, made an absolute fuckton of cash from all three
congrats for that!