If Blitz languages did not exist

Imagine if there was no such thing as Blitz Basic, Blitz3D, BlitzPlus, and BlitzMax.

Which language would you use for developing with on your PC?

The reason I had this thought ..

Going Waaay back I received an email telling me about Blitz Basic for the PC. Having used Amiga Blitz 2 for some time I jumped at it. Since then I have never looked back.
In fact, it got me hooked into playing around on my otherwise dull-to-use PC.

I'm thinking though, without Blitz which other language I would opt for?
I can't imagine getting the same 'vibe' using other languages.
The nearest I can think of is Pure Basic. I think that language would at least keep me ticking over.

If all I had was DarkBasic I would simply never be inspired to take up programming on the PC.

What say you?

I would not be using any language at all. In fact I'd still be employed by some company or other selling someone elses software instead of my own.

My first experience of a 3D programming language was Dark Basic, to me it was amazing. Then I found BLitz3D, fell off my chair and changed my life :)

I jumped onto the PC scene from the Amiga one solely because of Blitz3D. Without it I would still be using my Amiga now I expect!

Jason.

Python, Eiffel or Java. In that order.

Probably Delphi/Pascal, as that's what I used to program many years ago...
Then I stumbled upon BlitzBasic (think it was in some magazine), and remembered it from my old Amiga time, when I programmed in AMOS and thought BB was abit cryptic.
I thought, what the hey, I'll test it and see how it is..
And here I still am...

Same here, if it were not for BlitzMax coming out on the Mac I probably would've continued to never program ever again, which had been the case for about 5 years. I wouldn't have used any other language as I had basically given up on programming after my Amiga was sold and I immigrated to the USA from the UK. I never particularly liked C or its dirivatives as it could be too complex and far too mainstream for someone trying to be `different`, although I used to like 68k assembler. If it wasn't for BlitzMax on the Mac I just would've continued on my merry way and never programmed again. It was meant to be!

I was using Dev-C++ before I met Blitz, so I'd probably be hooked up to the dot net framework and it's all fangled, bloated naughtiness!

Dabz

probly purebasic

Might be PureBasic here....

DarkBasic (pro) of course.

If Blitz3D wouldn't exist, I most likely wouldn't have switched over after years with Dark Basic and Dark Basic Pro :)

Visual Basic.

QBasic :P

Or maybe VB orso when a GUI'ish enviroment was preferred, but just before I started with Blitz I was an avid QB user with old'ish VGA screens 'n things, tho not really high-end with libs and such (which always worked a bit odd, if I may :P)

vb.net and managed dx9.

C# and .NET

Purebasic and C++.

Well, realistically I'd probably still be thinking about implementing a huge RPG in Clickteams "Multimedia Fusion 2." That, along with a bit of Jamagic (a weird Javascript like language they tried to build...it failed miserably) was the only 'programming' experience I had, although MMF2 and it's predecessors were not anything like 'real programming.'

If Blitz suddenly fell off the face of the earth and my copy of BMax magically disappeared, I think I'd end up trying to wrap my head around Lisp.

Probably wouldn't be using anything. I'd used AMOSPro for a while and wrote a couple of commercial Amiga games, then got interested in Blitz2 just as Amiga/Commodore went tits-up.

A guy I worked with on AMOSZine e-mailed me out of the blue and told me about BlitzPC in 2000. If he hadn't done that I might never have known about it.

PureBasic, since it was the only other language at the time of my discover of Blitz that had an easy to navigate-site at the time.
(first looked at the original DarkBasic, but got lost at their site, and this was back when I was a noob at surfing the net)

(and that PureBasic was pretty much awesome for apps when I tried the trial of it, but at the time I was more into game development, so Blitz2d it was)

DarkBasic Pro

writing tic-tac-tow in VB and thinking it's missing something.

Was Blitz actually the first Basic on PC in this particular category? (easy basics for games and such)

Same for me, if BlitzMax wouldn't exist i think i wouldn't program at all.
I am learning to program with it and that's a real pleasure.
Other languages i tried looked boring to me.

Delphi (in fact I do anyway ;)

But blitz is what brought me back to game development after a (very) long break, which lead to 3 commercial games and in the end Cobra.

So far I've been off and on BlitzMax and C++, I havn't used my copy or even been in the Blitz3D forums for a long as I remember. I used do open Blitz3D every day after school for about a year, and spend all night on it. I pretty much had no life for the duration of that time.

Nope. Not by a long shot- but I know what you mean. I beleive there were several Qbasic clones for windows with their own graphics libs, but they seem to be none-existent now.

I was stumbling around trying to find something similar to Amiga Blitz -- I tried the DarkBasic demo (horrible syntax/editor), GameBasic (not much there early on) and *loads* of others -- when George @ Guildhall thankfully spammed the Amiga Blitz mailing list to let us know Blitz was returning. It was an idle fantasy come true!


No, but it's hard to remember just how poor the alternatives were on the PC before Blitz came along and did it just right. Now there are loads of options, but nothing beats the Blitz language or overall approach to 2D/3D programming if you ask me.

Without Blitz on the PC, I'd probably be using PureBasic, due to its strong Amiga Blitz influence, but I'm still not too keen on its gaming side and it retains some of the flaws in Amiga Blitz's syntax/style. (It's brilliant for Win32 API stuff though.)

Puhh there would be a lot of possibilities...

Just to name one: I still like the logic and the possibilities you have with lingo and sw3d. It's kind of outdated nowadays but the object orientation and the structure of the 3d engine is just wonderful and so well thought out. Lingo as a language is easy and powerful. Dot syntax, mixed and automatically type converted multidimensional arrays and so on... It's slow as it's interpreted but it builds on a great concept.

I'd be using C++ and the various other engines out there.

C++ or maybe C#. I would consider everything else second best.

PureBasic/C# and most probably I will be part of some other '3D'familly out there..I mean I did purchase almost every engine out there within 500US$ but this Blitz3D thingy is just suck me in completely :)

If it wasn't for Blitz, I'd almost certainly be using nothing to not write games in, rather than using Blitz to not write games in.

The biggest difference is that with Blitz, there's at least an outside chance. :o)

Well I first found darkbasic...and I think I'd have eventually lost interest if I was forced to keep using that.

C#...

If I hadn't come across BlitzBasic, I would still be using PowerBASIC (PBWin/PBDLL) for small applications, and probably ended up with either PureBasic or DarkBasic for games.

When I first made the switch from the Amiga to the PC, I looked long and hard but couldn't find anything similar to AMOS Professional at the time.

Python is truly a terrific, and incredibly well designed language.

If I could get away with it at work, I'd probably code a few things in IronPython.

Then again, C# is becoming more of a cross breed of Python, Eiffel and Java with every .Net upgrade...

Which is kind of what bothers me. I want an API with a Single Point OF Truth, not some sprawling mess that has hundreds of different (and conflicting) best practices.

Hello.

C/C++ and probably C#/.Net right now.

Goodbye.

C++... and probably frothing at the mouth with the Windows API. :)

C# - I like !

I was not understanding C/C++ on those online tutorials, and was stuck using JavaScript to make crappy internet games (and I mean CRAPPY). Whenever I went to the bookstore, I'd always look in the computer section even though everything was too hard (i.e. Advanced Polygonal Algorithms in C++) or too easy (i.e. How to turn on your computer). Then one day I found Game Programming for Teens by Maneesh Sethi. Awesome.

Same here!

Probably C#

C# is effectively C++++. It eliminates all the bad stuff from C++ and adds extra good stuff on top.

Yes. Which is part of the problem. Adding extra stuff is not always a good thing. Maybe you haven't been programming in C# long enough to remember back when C# was a lean language, before the .Net API exploded, back when using MSDN was the exception, rather than the rule.

According to George A. Miller most people can remember 7 different things (give or take 2) in their short term memory. Any more than that and you're screwed - you need to go look it up. Once you add even more stuff, it gets progressively worse, to the point you can't code 10 lines without looking things up all the time (C++ for example).

.Net designers unfortunately seem to think catching up to Eiffel is more important than fixing that which is already broken. Not a particularly good sign if you ask me.

But forcing people to have .net to run your c# games always seemed a bit crap.

But that's .NET, not C#. .NET is getting more complicated because, well, Windows does a lot of stuff. To give people access to it all requires a lot of classes and functions.


I think that's inherent to any programming library that has reached a particular level of maturity. You can't keep it all in your head. That's where IDEs like the new Whidbey ones come into play. Fast intellisense means less guessing and less looking up stuff in the help file, once you have a general idea of where you're headed.

It's rare that I need to type out a full function or variable name. Most times I type the first 3 letters, hit TAB, and start filling in the arguments.

I don't see why it's worse than forcing them to have MFC or the visual c runtime (dll hell!) installed, or the Java runtime, or even DirectX or Windows! I mean if you accept that people are going to have to install more or less arbitrary software to play your game, it's just a matter of drawing the line. In 5 years, evereyone will be using .Net, and Win32 will be a bad memory, just like non-NT based Windows are today.

While that's true, the two are somewhat co-dependant (since no native C# compile exists to my knowledge, and developing in .Net in any other language than C# is just absurd).

I don't really mind that Windows does a lot of stuff. I mind that it doesn't do so consistently.

True, but is it really nessecary for a Control to have BOTH ClientSize and ClientRectangle as well as seperate height, width and size properties? I mean seriously? Is setting the size of a control such an important task that you need at least 5 different ways to do it? I would have thought that width and height would suffice.

I've just moved to using .NET Framework v2 with C# at work - my projects all migrated successfully (windows services, web apps, windows apps, the lot). It's even highlighted code that is obsolete and links to recommended alternatives (mainly SMTP mail stuff).

Had a bit of fun during some testing today with deployment and client security permissions, but I think this stems from having little knowledge of how the GAC works.

I still really like .NET, and the improvement in the VS2005 IDE over VS2003 is quite dramatic.

Powerbasic , ASM, Delphi but no 3d games

My first experience of a 3D programming language was Dark Basic, to me it was amazing. Then I found BLitz3D, fell off my chair and changed my life :) same here

For Amiga, I would have stayed with AMOS.

PC I would have stayed with Dark Basic.

I might add that I liked AMOS and DB, I just preferred Blitz (same as most people)

Went through a phase of just playing console games until I bought a PC to help with my work. Came across the Blitz Basic demo on PC Format and the rest is history. Had that not been on the CD, then may have tried C++ at some point, but given up with not having the time to put anything together worthwhile. Possibly would have come across Dark Basic or PureBasic, but I wasn't actively seeking to get back into programming on any largish scale. So basically, there's a good chance my programming days would have ended back in the early 90's with my Atari ST.

Lisp. So actually Blitz saved me from insanity.

Ah! BlitzBasic on the Amiga.. those where the days (dribble)

assembly language, Java, C, in that order =)

I don't use blitz all that much these days... c# converted me a couple years ago.

Now I only use blitz to test things/ prototype quickly. I would actually prefer to use python over blitz for quicky-throw away programs, but I know blitz like the back of my hand. Where as in python, I end up having to look up lots of stuff.

Still waiting for boo to have complete generics support. Its a shame it'll probably never have the great microsoft ides like c# and vb.net. Cuz otherwise, it would be a simple choice for me.

boo -> c# -> visualbasic.net -> python -> pascal -> c

No idea at all how anyone can regard .Net as a suitable substitute for any of Jim's specified Blitz products, or am I missing something? Hmm, ok maybe this thread is just another excuse for all you Microsoft/Windoze fanboys to plug C# yet again!

Anyway, for games I'd probably go with D together with a selection of suitable libraries (SDL, Allegro, Irrlicht, TrueVision, whatever - you get the picture). Lua for scripting.

If I'm only doing, Windows-only GUI apps: PureBasic.
Cross-platform RAD? RealBASIC, maybe. Otherwise, again, D with a suitable GUI library: FLTK, WxWidgets, Qt etc - you get the picture).

A few of us went over .Net in a very recent thread. Should be on the 2nd page now.

Sincerely,
a micro$oft fanboi ;)

I plug C#/.NET because it is the single most productive programming environment I've ever used. I really don't care who makes it or what platform it runs on.

OH NO I would'nt have been programing but probably C++

Same here.
I tried DIV Games Studio years ago but never took to it.
Maybe Purebasic but, most likely, DarkBasic Pro.
I doubt I would ever have gone the C++ route. I don't have much to base this on (never really put the effort into C++)but I want the hard work done for me. :)