BlitzMax .Net

Now that BlitzMax has been released -- and we all know you have nothing else on your plate :) -- is there any chance of creating a .Net version of BlitzMax? Since BM is a great application development tool and .Net is a great platform, a .Net version of BM would be ideal for integrating all OSes with graphics-rich application development!

(Yeah, yeah. I know I'm living in Fantasyland.)

Funny you should say that, I've done a little GUI lib in BlitzMax (PC) that uses the .NET classes.

Yeah, .NET on all OS is really Fantasyland *ggg*
Would fix it to windows as the other OS will need years to be up on the actual .NET Framework ( I am not even talking of the upcomming .NET 2.0 )

OK Terabit... That sounds interesting... you got a demo for us???
RZ

I've heard that the last version of Mono is pretty advanced.

I just had a look at my example. It doesn't work on the latest build of the Win32 stuff (I built it a few versions ago.)

I'll have a look soon to see what's going on. But basicly it calls a DLL which was created in .NET which wraps some of the GUI functionality.

Sounds cool! I look forward to seeing any of the stuff I have read about here.

Why use BMAX to code windows program when .net gives you all the funcitonality ?

If I was in Mark, I'd focus on a serious OpenGL 1.2 / 1.3 3D engine for BlitzMax.

We can then code tools in whatever language we like.

Is blitz intended for games or ? I don't like the will of BlitzPlus and BlitzMax to be a different way of doing windowed guied programs. Better VB.net C# for that, isn't it ?

Didn't intend to be polemical, just an observation.

If you were in Mark, I'm sure there would be complaints. :)

LOL

LOL

I'm actually waiting for the official GUI stuff so I can have a crack at a "serious" aplication. I'm hoping the GUI's will be native and cross platform.

I really enjoy working in blitz.

Perturbatio you can stay on topic can you ? No I'm sure you can't. Beside what my english mistakes can be, you are just a dick.

Athlon64 3500+, 2GBDDR400, ATIRadeon9800 256MB

.net is a nightmare... big, bloated, and nasty. It has lots of market share because of Microsoft, but myself and many others steer as far away from .net as possible.

What I want from BlitzMax is cross platform #1. There are other tools that I can use to program in. The thing that distinguishes blitz from everything else and makes it the best product for me is the cross platform ability, for a single cheap licence.

You're missing the bigger question. Why use BlitzMAX to code in .Net at all, when there are 23 other languages you could use (including but not limited to C# and VisualBasic)?

Actually .Net would be pretty cool if it wasn't for all the Win32 legacy junk in there. Oh and someone made a huge mistake on the threading model.

The cool thing about BlitzMAX IMHO is that it produces (mostly) stand-alone binaries.

.NET is a great tool for developing fastly and easily big apps in a time-record. This applications aren't stand alone binaries... (that's a problem) or... not? What about having an implementation of the .NET framework for MAC and for UNIX? remember that .NET applications are compiled 'on the fly' at start-up, so there could be compilers of the .NET framework for other platforms. Microsoft won't do it, but there are some open source projects to port the .NET application to other platforms. They're re-coding absolutely everything to avoid licensing issues. It's just a matter of time (see mono project, for example, working on linux and MacOs X with wx gadgets as GTK).
I think the point of BlitzMax is it's hability to create stand-alone and powerful executables in a very small time. the cross-platform is very interesting but, if you want cross-platform compatibility, code in C or C++ for free with the GNU compiler.
If you don't want to reinvent the wheel in every program, code in .NET. If you want cross-platform compatibility, record-time development, and safe distribution of your executables, maybe BlitzMax would be the best choice ever. Let it grow and let's see what happens...

Yes you got the point Flame Duck, why use .net at all with BlitzMax.

BlitzMax will be able to compile straight (almost) same code for many diff. platforms.

What I meant, I'd keep the blitz products range intended for games, games tools, but not for example for database applications, and other windows applications that can be done in minutes with VS6 or .net

Developing using .Net is no more, or no less time consuming than developing for other targets.

Depends on your target audience. If people are not inclined to download 2 megabytes worth of display drivers to get OpenGL compatibility, I don't see them downloading 70+ megabytes of .Net framework.

That would be nice. Unfortunately with the CLR tie-ins to DCOM and Win32 I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future.

No there aren't. Nor would that be legal. This ball is entirely in Microsofts court.

Projects like Mono and dotGNU are not cross-platform .Net frameworks. They are seperate .Net-like frameworks, with a similar class library.

Programming in C or C++ with the GNU compiler collection does not guarantee that your program will be cross-platform.

Or one or more of the other thousands of available class libraries, including but not limited to your own source code collection.

Read the essay "No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering" for additional insigt as to why the .Net framework is not all you think it is.

FlameDuck,

The MS implementation of the CLR is a 20mb D/L. Not disputing it is big, but not 70mb.

I think you've missed the point of mono. It indeed is a cross-platform implementation of the CLR and BCL (base class library).

mono is already production quality, and executables are binary compatible with the MS CLR. Apps compiled will run on either implementation. Obviously, if one uses namespaces not available in either implementation, it will fail.

You are incorrect that the CLR is tied in to DCOM and Win32. The CLR is its own runtime environment. The framework provides access to these APIs through namespaces, but you are certainly not required to use them.

Another important aspect of for a cross platform .Net environment for writing games is an OpenGL namespace to abstract the OpenGL layer on both (Win32/*nix) systems. There just happens to be one available (http://www.taoframework.com/). Runs under the MS CLR or mono.

mono is already thriving on OSX (http://www.mono-project.com/Mono:OSX)

I have much experience with parsers and have read a couple of books on compilers and experimented with .Net compilers. It is a very doable project. I'd be very interested in looking into this as a hobby, but it is quite bit to tackle alone.

Cheers,

Stu