SyntaxBomb - Indie Coders

Just read this morning that Mark Sibly has passed away.
Very sad news, Blitzbasic PC was the first language to get me into coding back in the day.
RIP Mark

https://www.facebook.com/acidsoftware/posts/pfbid0upvqKW71ncjQKPbGjFEtofW2svTAvtyUWx4ZwTdy66AwDqmDhg6mpunndsrZJPQ1l

OMG 

For me Blitz3D and BlitzMax were the modern versions of languages like STOS and AMOS on the 16-bit systems.

So sad to hear of another person dying, not a relative or friend this time but nevertheless somebody many of us were very familiar with. RIP Mark. 

So sad to here this! What a time of year to pass 

My best wishes and condolences go out to Marks Family. Long may his Legacy of coding continue in us!

Im absolutely hooked on BlitzmaxNG

Kind Regards Baggey

very sad news indeed 

as i often say in such difficult moments, as humans we live in bodies but also in minds, so in a way we can continue to make some aspects of Mark 'live', by sharing concepts and open source code related to making apps and games using blitzbasic and blitzmax...

RIP Mark Sibly 🌺

I am sure some people already know, but our lord and master Mark Sibly has sadly passed away, as posted on Acid Software's facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/acidsoftware/

I am sure we all have our memories to share but my entire game programming career and then eventually moving to Japan is quite literally thanks to him.
I know I conversed with him a bit back in the BB.com days on the official forums. 

It does suck I am no longer able to thank him for the boost it gave me in life, however I am sure a lot of us share that sentiment. I am glad I got to experience the end games of the bedroom coding scene before well, Unity and Unreal engine overtook everything. He will be missed.

The bedroom coder scene was made possible by tools like the blitz family range of programming languages. And yes, it has shocked me Mark's passing. I don't know how old he was but I do recall on many occasions him talking about his health and how bad it was.

These are the moments you don't want to think would happen but they do and we have lost a goodun. 

I guess now we have to reply on Unity or Unreal. There isn't much out there worthy like blitz was.

Mark Sibly made 3d programming possible for me in the early days, and pretty much set me on a life long career in 3d programming. 

This news saddens me, he will be sorely missed.

As games became more complicated to make and longer and required all sorts of graphics etc, making a game by one person became more and more difficult.
Tools like Blitz Basic really gave us that final boost to the bedroom coder era. Unfortunately as you'd expect Mark Sibly is just one guy and well, imagine if 50 Mark Sibly guys were working on Blitz? Well that in the end that is what Unity etc and other languages became.
Being ahead of the curve unfortunately and eventually other companies come along to try and mimic that formula.

Sure it's still possible to make a game on your own, but times have changed, there's thousands of free games on itch.io or the mobile app stores everyday. Like, VHS, CD/DVD, Arcade machines, each of these styles has their day.

It does make me feel old. Mark and Simon Armstrong are probably early to mid 50s, not much older than us. But yeah, it's honestly 25 years ago now, half my lifetime ago. I did so much in Blitz and BlitzMax, many finished, some published. I also did a ton of bug fixes and language translations for many games, I maybe saw 50 or more game source codes. Blitz was a fun time, very sad we can't go back but yeah, I am just glad I was around during that time.

Mark's languages made 2D and even 3D games production very accessible back then. You had an all-in-one solution which was fantastic, rather than choosing a separate engine and language like today.

At the Blitz3D site there was so much activity, with projects, banter and the odd falling out. There was a buzz and excitement about the place as Mark would tease us with what he was currently working on for us.

A hugely talented bloke who will be fondly remembered. RIP.

I spied the news! 

Over 20 years I've used his tools... Which have created many fond memories, such a shame because he was probably no age, another one of them "Taken too soon".

I think we can all (Current and past users) thank Mark for many things, and blessings we've had in all our little programming adventures, they've been glorious years, ups and downs yeah, but he has been the bloke at the very centre of it all... Not many people do that in a life time, but what he coded was special, second to none.

RIP Mark

Dabz

This was shocking and saddening news

Quote from: Dabz on December 12, 2024, 17:05:48I think we can all (Current and past users) thank Mark for many things, and blessings we've had in all our little programming adventures, they've been glorious years, ups and downs yeah, but he has been the bloke at the very centre of it all... Not many people do that in a life time, but what he coded was special, second to none.

Spot on.

RIP Mark.

I could be mistaken but that I think he talked about his health once during the irc days shortly before monkey was released. Mine are not so well too. I think I asked if his health arent well he said he did not have much time well that why he'd waste it programming. I do not remember his response. Perhaps it were someone else prominent from that irc though but I do not think so.

i have started to learn how to make video games using blitzbasic.
a bit late to the party compared to you guys...
with a friendly blitz community and many code examples, always somebody to help, this was great !
i think that i have continued to learn and to experiment with this because the blitzbasic language is simple to understand and to write, we can get results fast !

so, i am very thanksful to Mark Sibly to have produced this language / engines. 🙏

i still use 'blitz3d' these days...

RIP Mark Sibly 🌺

This is truly sad news, Mark Sibly had a huge influence on my life through Blitz Basic2.1 on the Amiga through to Blitz3D, and Monkey where I'd no end of fun coding .GPX parsers in HTML5.  R.I.P. Mr Mark Sibly. 

I said a bit in the other thread but when Mark released Blitz and I came across it on the Amiga Format coverdisk, I kind of think I grew up as a coder. I'd been pissing about with Amos for quite a while up to that point. While it was programming, it wasn't a proper serious language like Blitz was. I practically started from scratch learning again back then. I made a lot more games in Blitz than I ever made in Amos. And quite a few applications too, which I can still see on Aminet when I google them. I might have ditched programming altogether if Amiga blitz and later the Windows version hadn't come along.

I conversed with Mark a few times over the years but never to a point where he'd likely know who I was, as I wasn't one of the more prolific people on the old blitz forums. I always felt he was the kind of guy who, while clearly a programming genius, wasn't so taken with the business and support kind of aspect that his work required. He had a few times where he just went off the radar for a long time, and I always assumed he just couldn't handle the attention his work bought him and would rather just stay in the background. I never knew he was ill so this news shocked me as much as everyone else.

I literally do what I do now because of him, and I'll never forget that. I hope he's at peace now, and forever.