6 ms·

BlitzMax, Cross-Platform OO BASIC, Is Free and Open Source

82 points by dragonbonheur 11y ago

gosukiwi 11y ago
Nice! I remember using it some years ago. I'll check it out again.
philippeback 11y ago
Blitz3D is Free and Open Source too. And Monkey-X is mostly Open Source. Soon to be fully Open Source after MX2 is out (http://www.monkey-x.com/Community/topics.php?forum=230 http://www.monkey-x.com/Community/topics.php?forum=230) http://monkey-x.com http://monkey-x.com
cordite 11y ago
Oh hey, this is the first language I ever used, when I was 12! Don't think I'll ever go back to this though. Never could figure out the 3D stuff back then, but had fun drawing lines, text, occasional bitmaps and playing sound samples.
- mbrock 11y ago
  My very first was C64 BASIC, then QBASIC for DOS, which was a really good programming environment for a kid—Dijkstra's warnings about mental mutilation notwithstanding, it was really simple, it came with some games that you could modify, and it had a built-in help manual thing. And plus awesome features like the PLAY function that took a string of notes, which I'm pretty sure helped me even get interested in music, at age 6 or whatever. Me and my brother made all kinds of weird pixel patterns and stuff. One time mom brought home a projector from work, in like 1997, and we made disco lighting by making a full-screen button in Visual Basic that changed colors.
  - greydius 11y ago
    QBASIC was my first programming experience. I fondly remember a little known function that would treat a string variable as an array of machine instructions and execute them. There was a nice library of graphics functions designed that way by some clever person which I had found on the late 90's internet. I used that to write a little space invaders clone because the built in functions for copying data between buffers were so abysmally slow (even on my kick-ass state-of-the-art 100Mhz Pentium processor).
  - seanwilson 11y ago
    > Dijkstra's warnings about mental mutilation notwithstanding I really dislike that quote: "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration". I'm not sure how serious he was being but I cannot see how a potentially good programmer would refuse to learn new concepts like they would need to do when first moving to OO, functional, procedural etc. languages. BASIC is obviously less relevant now but it was nice in that it was easy and quick to get started in whereas more complex languages might scared complete beginners away.
    - schoen 11y ago
      I'm sure it's meant to be humorous, but it could be taken as pretty aggressive humor. I wonder how much is known about early bad habits in any area sticking with us as we learn other things.
    - striking 11y ago
      It's not entirely false. I've seen stubborn students before that refused to do anything new.
      - seanwilson 11y ago
        > It's not entirely false. I've seen stubborn students before that refused to do anything new. How would someone like that ever become a good programmer? Programming involves continual learning and keeping your skillset up-to-date.
        WoodenChair 11y ago
        There are "good" programmers who still write 6502 assembly. Good is a relative term. They might just be very "good" at what they do.
        seanwilson 11y ago
        It's fair enough specialising in a niche but having the attitude of "I refuse to learn that because it's unfamiliar" isn't going to get anyone anywhere.
  - mchahn 11y ago
    My first programming was on punched-card sorters and tabulators that used plug-in boards like the phone operators used. Get off my lawn.
tarellel 11y ago
I hate to ask, but is BlitzMax similar to DarkBasic? Which it seems is in the processing of OpenSourcing their programming engine at the moment as well. - https://www.thegamecreators.com/product/dark-basic-pro-open-source https://www.thegamecreators.com/product/dark-basic-pro-open-...
- dragonbonheur 11y ago
  The two have often been compared, but BlitzMax is lighter on resources, plus i think DarkBasic has a camera system for 2D rendering while BlitzMax doesn't.
johnhattan 11y ago
So how are BlitzBasic, BlitzMax, DarkBasic and MonkeyX related? Just trying to figure out the differences.
- ComNik 11y ago
  Can't comment on DarkBasic or Monkey, but: BlitzBasic and BlitzMax are about the same language. What BlitzMax provided over BlitzBasic was a direct integration with DirectX and OpenGL, which allowed you to make 2D games with hardware supported rendering. Your average BlitzBasic "Hello World" would usually take up 50% of the CPU.
  - dragonbonheur 11y ago
    >Your average BlitzBasic "Hello World" would usually take up 50% of the CPU On the Amiga?
    - ComNik 11y ago
      No, on a Core-2 :)
      - dragonbonheur 11y ago
        That's weird. BlitzBASIC games run well on a 1.2 GHz single core Celeron with 512MB RAM. You must have been doing Hello World wrong :D
- dragonbonheur 11y ago
  BlitzBasic started on the Amiga and was used to create games such as super Skidmarks 1 & 2. It featured easy to use GUI functions that allowed lots of people to create programs for the Amiga easily. The Windows version is known as BlitzPlus and also has GUI support among other functions such as networking, DLL calls, Sound, etc. It is mostly used for 2D games but you have to render rotated sprites before you can use them. It is a procedural language. Blitz3D includes 3D functions but it is also a procedural language. BlitzMax is an Object Oriented language. It also allows on-the-fly rotation and scaling of sprites. Most examples of the Blitz family of languages on the web are for BlitzMax. There is a Linux as well as a Mac OS compiler for it. MonkeyX is also from the same company and improves upon BlitzMax. It has several free and paid compiler backends as well as several IDEs. The free version of MonkeyX will compile/export to Desktop executables and HTML5. DarkBASIC first appeared in the late 90's/early 00's and offered several 3D functions from the beginning. It is a procedural language. The biggest differences in the base language will be the way Types are declared. DarkBASIC will be much like QuickBASIC while BlitzMax will use the Field keyword to define member variables and the Function keyword to define methods.
ComNik 11y ago
I spent most of my early programming years with BlitzMax. The language itself probably has no future on it's own, but combined with the DX/OpenGL integration and overall straightforwardness, I'd heavily recommend it for interested children. If you have one or know of one, consider this.
jorgecurio 11y ago
I used to use DarkBasic from seeing it first time in PC Gamer magazine around 99 or 00, so this is great news.
- tarellel 11y ago
  I tried DarkBasic years ago as well, I was into Bryce, C4D, taking a bunch of A/V classes, and learning to program at the time. I was in major overload. I ended up buying a few a of their tools, the pro version, etc (which were mostly made in DarkBasic as well, aka eat you own dog food). But I haven't touched it in years... But since seeing this post I looked at the DarkBasic website and it appears they are also OpenSourcing their Pro version as well. https://www.thegamecreators.com/product/dark-basic-pro-open-source https://www.thegamecreators.com/product/dark-basic-pro-open-...
orionblastar 11y ago
You have to register an account and use a discount code to download it for free. It looks like it has been migrated to open source and used to be commercial at one time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitz_BASIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitz_BASIC Here is a Wikibooks entry on it: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/BlitzMax https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/BlitzMax
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
Re: DarkBASIC, its creators, The Game Creators, are now selling yet another BASIC dialect for cross-platform game development: http://appgamekit.com/ http://appgamekit.com/
phantom_oracle 11y ago
Is the primary use-case of this software for creating games?
- dragonbonheur 11y ago
  Most people make games, but you can do a lot more with it. there are functions for lots of things.
arc0re 11y ago
Neat, I was looking for a "modern" BASIC to make some little games, just to see how it was made before. I've always been interested in BASIC, I don't get why some people hate it...
- giancarlostoro 11y ago
  Might have to do with projects based around BASIC being developed by inexperienced developers and most people dread maintaining poorly designed code, probably one of the reasons, there's others I'm sure. Also if you come from a different background to BASIC you get the wrong impression about the language.
  - arc0re 11y ago
    Yeah and there is a lot of C# people that despise VB, its not helping either
empressplay 11y ago
I love the "free as in beer" license: BlitzPlus is released under the zlib/libpng license. The zlib/libpng License Copyright (c) 2013 Blitz Research Ltd This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software. Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose, including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it freely, subject to the following restrictions: 1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required. 2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software. 3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.

82 points by dragonbonheur 11y ago

Nice! I remember using it some years ago. I'll check it out again.

Blitz3D is Free and Open Source too. And Monkey-X is mostly Open Source. Soon to be fully Open Source after MX2 is out (http://www.monkey-x.com/Community/topics.php?forum=230 http://www.monkey-x.com/Community/topics.php?forum=230) http://monkey-x.com http://monkey-x.com

cordite 11y ago

Oh hey, this is the first language I ever used, when I was 12! Don't think I'll ever go back to this though. Never could figure out the 3D stuff back then, but had fun drawing lines, text, occasional bitmaps and playing sound samples.

mbrock 11y ago
My very first was C64 BASIC, then QBASIC for DOS, which was a really good programming environment for a kid—Dijkstra's warnings about mental mutilation notwithstanding, it was really simple, it came with some games that you could modify, and it had a built-in help manual thing. And plus awesome features like the PLAY function that took a string of notes, which I'm pretty sure helped me even get interested in music, at age 6 or whatever. Me and my brother made all kinds of weird pixel patterns and stuff. One time mom brought home a projector from work, in like 1997, and we made disco lighting by making a full-screen button in Visual Basic that changed colors.
- greydius 11y ago
  QBASIC was my first programming experience. I fondly remember a little known function that would treat a string variable as an array of machine instructions and execute them. There was a nice library of graphics functions designed that way by some clever person which I had found on the late 90's internet. I used that to write a little space invaders clone because the built in functions for copying data between buffers were so abysmally slow (even on my kick-ass state-of-the-art 100Mhz Pentium processor).
- seanwilson 11y ago
  > Dijkstra's warnings about mental mutilation notwithstanding I really dislike that quote: "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration". I'm not sure how serious he was being but I cannot see how a potentially good programmer would refuse to learn new concepts like they would need to do when first moving to OO, functional, procedural etc. languages. BASIC is obviously less relevant now but it was nice in that it was easy and quick to get started in whereas more complex languages might scared complete beginners away.
  - schoen 11y ago
    I'm sure it's meant to be humorous, but it could be taken as pretty aggressive humor. I wonder how much is known about early bad habits in any area sticking with us as we learn other things.
  - striking 11y ago
    It's not entirely false. I've seen stubborn students before that refused to do anything new.
    - seanwilson 11y ago
      > It's not entirely false. I've seen stubborn students before that refused to do anything new. How would someone like that ever become a good programmer? Programming involves continual learning and keeping your skillset up-to-date.
      - WoodenChair 11y ago
        There are "good" programmers who still write 6502 assembly. Good is a relative term. They might just be very "good" at what they do.
        seanwilson 11y ago
        It's fair enough specialising in a niche but having the attitude of "I refuse to learn that because it's unfamiliar" isn't going to get anyone anywhere.
- mchahn 11y ago
  My first programming was on punched-card sorters and tabulators that used plug-in boards like the phone operators used. Get off my lawn.

tarellel 11y ago

I hate to ask, but is BlitzMax similar to DarkBasic? Which it seems is in the processing of OpenSourcing their programming engine at the moment as well. - https://www.thegamecreators.com/product/dark-basic-pro-open-source https://www.thegamecreators.com/product/dark-basic-pro-open-...

dragonbonheur 11y ago
The two have often been compared, but BlitzMax is lighter on resources, plus i think DarkBasic has a camera system for 2D rendering while BlitzMax doesn't.

johnhattan 11y ago

So how are BlitzBasic, BlitzMax, DarkBasic and MonkeyX related? Just trying to figure out the differences.

ComNik 11y ago
Can't comment on DarkBasic or Monkey, but: BlitzBasic and BlitzMax are about the same language. What BlitzMax provided over BlitzBasic was a direct integration with DirectX and OpenGL, which allowed you to make 2D games with hardware supported rendering. Your average BlitzBasic "Hello World" would usually take up 50% of the CPU.
- dragonbonheur 11y ago
  >Your average BlitzBasic "Hello World" would usually take up 50% of the CPU On the Amiga?
  - ComNik 11y ago
    No, on a Core-2 :)
    - dragonbonheur 11y ago
      That's weird. BlitzBASIC games run well on a 1.2 GHz single core Celeron with 512MB RAM. You must have been doing Hello World wrong :D
dragonbonheur 11y ago
BlitzBasic started on the Amiga and was used to create games such as super Skidmarks 1 & 2. It featured easy to use GUI functions that allowed lots of people to create programs for the Amiga easily. The Windows version is known as BlitzPlus and also has GUI support among other functions such as networking, DLL calls, Sound, etc. It is mostly used for 2D games but you have to render rotated sprites before you can use them. It is a procedural language. Blitz3D includes 3D functions but it is also a procedural language. BlitzMax is an Object Oriented language. It also allows on-the-fly rotation and scaling of sprites. Most examples of the Blitz family of languages on the web are for BlitzMax. There is a Linux as well as a Mac OS compiler for it. MonkeyX is also from the same company and improves upon BlitzMax. It has several free and paid compiler backends as well as several IDEs. The free version of MonkeyX will compile/export to Desktop executables and HTML5. DarkBASIC first appeared in the late 90's/early 00's and offered several 3D functions from the beginning. It is a procedural language. The biggest differences in the base language will be the way Types are declared. DarkBASIC will be much like QuickBASIC while BlitzMax will use the Field keyword to define member variables and the Function keyword to define methods.

ComNik 11y ago

I spent most of my early programming years with BlitzMax. The language itself probably has no future on it's own, but combined with the DX/OpenGL integration and overall straightforwardness, I'd heavily recommend it for interested children. If you have one or know of one, consider this.

jorgecurio 11y ago

I used to use DarkBasic from seeing it first time in PC Gamer magazine around 99 or 00, so this is great news.

tarellel 11y ago
I tried DarkBasic years ago as well, I was into Bryce, C4D, taking a bunch of A/V classes, and learning to program at the time. I was in major overload. I ended up buying a few a of their tools, the pro version, etc (which were mostly made in DarkBasic as well, aka eat you own dog food). But I haven't touched it in years... But since seeing this post I looked at the DarkBasic website and it appears they are also OpenSourcing their Pro version as well. https://www.thegamecreators.com/product/dark-basic-pro-open-source https://www.thegamecreators.com/product/dark-basic-pro-open-...

orionblastar 11y ago

You have to register an account and use a discount code to download it for free. It looks like it has been migrated to open source and used to be commercial at one time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitz_BASIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitz_BASIC Here is a Wikibooks entry on it: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/BlitzMax https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/BlitzMax

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

Re: DarkBASIC, its creators, The Game Creators, are now selling yet another BASIC dialect for cross-platform game development: http://appgamekit.com/ http://appgamekit.com/

phantom_oracle 11y ago

Is the primary use-case of this software for creating games?

dragonbonheur 11y ago
Most people make games, but you can do a lot more with it. there are functions for lots of things.

arc0re 11y ago

Neat, I was looking for a "modern" BASIC to make some little games, just to see how it was made before. I've always been interested in BASIC, I don't get why some people hate it...

giancarlostoro 11y ago
Might have to do with projects based around BASIC being developed by inexperienced developers and most people dread maintaining poorly designed code, probably one of the reasons, there's others I'm sure. Also if you come from a different background to BASIC you get the wrong impression about the language.
- arc0re 11y ago
  Yeah and there is a lot of C# people that despise VB, its not helping either

empressplay 11y ago

I love the "free as in beer" license: BlitzPlus is released under the zlib/libpng license. The zlib/libpng License Copyright (c) 2013 Blitz Research Ltd This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software. Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose, including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it freely, subject to the following restrictions: 1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required. 2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software. 3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.