No (Actual) Doc for BMax Beginner..

I show one of my friend(who used MMF for years and just start to learn coding) what BlitzMax can do and he downloaded a demo, after trying for a few days, that's what he told me:

"These demos are really nice, however I don't know where to start, there's no tutorial to get my hands on, it's kinda hard for me to get used of it within the trial period, ......blahblah......, so I'm not considering learning it further"

What the..... well I looked at the docs again, no step by step tuts, command reference with few examples , good samples but lacking basic ones.

Is BMax assuming user using it have BlitzBasic fundamentals? Or BMax have not intend to make it not so steep to newbies?

Later I tell him to get a Blitz3D demo and seems he learns easier with it. Really hope BMax was better documented :(

http://www.blitzwiki.org/
Really: It's an excellent resource.
Since there is no chance of getting new docs before all those modules are out, and still barely any chance afterwards, I suggest that you use that.
The incredible ammounts of time that people spend complaining in vain with 150 post threads would much better spent improving on BlitzWiki.


Too much work? You payed all that money for docs instead of a programming language?
It's a give and take sort of thing. The wiki has all sorts of lessons to teach you, and in return, you add in a lesson or two of your own.

Things like the language reference are still fairly similar to the official docs (seeing as they're based off of them), but there are also some nice changes in spots that make it easier, and some things that are totally different. (Or new).

Yeh, but anybody LEARNING coding or BEGINNING to code or a COMPLETE NOVICE to coding really, really, REALLY, ought to start with BLITZ 3D rather than bmax.

Not really. It's spammed non-stop (and, despite the many posts regarding this, the maintainer hasn't yet locked down the site to prevent this, so I just stopped bothering -- why help?), barely has any useful information, and is incredibly slow (all MediaWiki sites seem to suffer from that).

The docs are NOT our responsibility, they are BRL's. As such, it is BRL's job to improve the documentation.

Calm down folks. Yes the DOCs are horrid. The WIKI site is a joke, not even remotely up to date or complete.

There are some third-party docs for BMax beginners that are VERY nice and explain things very well.

Unfortunately, Blitz DOCs are likely to remain horrid. The original DOCs for Blitz were written by Shane Monroe and were awesome. B3D & B+ docs largely took from Shane's work. Since Shane is no longer writing the docs, we are stuck with what we have unless BRL can find somebody who is skilled at technical writing to rewrite the BMAX stuff.

.... or ask to bundle the BlitzMax and MAXGui guides with the demo/product?

Mr Picklesworth, just to correct you a bit, he never paid any money. He downloaded and tried to use the demo. That involves learning the language from the available doc and testing it in 30 days.
My guess is there are quite a few people who download the demo but don't achieve much in the time available so don't go any further.
At least bundling those tutorials will get somebody up and running.

I have stickied the best two beginners tutorials in the BlitzMax tutorials section and will be contacting the authors regarding permission to include them in our distributions.

If I've missed any others that are of similar quality pls let me know.

Skid, lots of really good tutorials but Wave's How to make Asteroids in hour or so might be suitable for a beginner's tutorial.

Well done. Folding the best user-produced docs into the official ones (if the authors are willing) sounds like a good way to jump-start them.

here's another excellent one from assari
http://www.blitzmax.com/Community/posts.php?topic=55639

I’m no beginner but I find myself referencing his gui tutorials quite a bit. I think you could do no wrong by giving him a little “incentive” to produce more in other areas. He writes this kind of stuff well and seems to like it. That last part is hard to find.

I would say. Read this
Its the best beginners guide ever. And then bookmark this page for later reference. coz it has everything
http://www.2dgamecreators.com/blitzmax/resources/

assari is the best! :)