Now Blitz Basic??? I am so Confused so much Info!!!

[Alex Khan]

A frien dof mine recommended Blitz basic to me.

Just when I have started getting used to FB and reading Lachie's tutorials this new information has been thrown my way.

This is information overload!

I am now curious to Torrent Blitz and play around with it.

But that is also a drain on my time.

Please convince me otherwise (Tell me the Cons) of using Blitz so that I am not tempted to download it and study it.

My objective is games ... and I can handle Higher Level languages I am not shy of studying a language. I am told that Blitz is for people who do not want to study programming and just throw games together is this true?

Need your help please guide me!

[Alex Khan]

I just want to focus on one or two languages and get good at them.

I chose basic and FB IDE variant.

But how can i focus on one variant of Basic when these damn marketing people are creating new variations of Basic everyday!

It is very frustrating ... >:(

How do you people deal with this ?

Please discredit Blitz for me.

[agamemnus]

Apparently Blitz basic is special-purpose (for games programming), while freebasic is not.

[angros47]

Blitz3d it's great for 3d games: for 2d games, it has not much more than FreeBasic.

Anyway, in the BlitzBasic site there are many products:

BlitzBasic: 2d only, no OOP, WIndows-only
Blitz3D: the same as BlitzBasic, but with 3d commands
BlitzPlus: 2d only, but it features some Windows options
BlitzMax: OOP, 2d, 3d with an extension, Windows, Linux and Mac

On the official BlitzBasic site there is a demo: you can use it, but you can't produce executables, and it's time-limited.

I'm trying to port MiniB3d (an extension to enable 3d commands of BlitzBasic) to FreeBasic: If I can do that, FreeBasic will have the same features as BlitzBasic.

Don't try to torrent BlitzBasic: it's against the law, and also you could get malware by doing that. Also, you won't be able to sell your games (you won't be able to invoke copyright, if you don't respect it). Remember that FreeBasic is free, and 100% legal, and open source (and, if I will ever complete my port of MiniB3d, it will be free and open source, too... do you want to help me doing that?)

[Alex Khan]

Apparently Blitz basic is special-purpose (for games programming), while freebasic is not.

Sir, you are supposed to be convincing me otherwise.

Please do not tell me what I do not want to hear.

I have been studying Free basic for one month now I cannot possibly switch gears and move over to Blitz.

There are alot of games in Free Basic too. :)

Please discredit Blitz there must be cons to it. It is not a real language is it?

[angros47]

Ok, I'll try:

- Arrays are managed in a very quirky way
- It's Windows-only
- Cannot be used to build true GUI applications
- No OOP, no pointers...
- It's expensive
- Support depends on only one developer, and it could cease at every time (and developer could loose the source code! http://www.blitzmax.com/Community/posts.php?topic=86293)
- It supports only DirectX 7 (no newer versions, no OpenGL)

Ok, I don't want to make FUD, so I stop here

[Alex Khan]

Blitz3d it's great for 3d games: for 2d games, it has not much more than FreeBasic.

Aha! Thank You! So it has the same functionality as Free Basic but the marketing people have cleverly marketed and packaged it as an easy to use game dev platform for Noobs like me. >:( This is what I suspected.

>>Anyway, in the BlitzBasic site there are many products:

BlitzBasic: 2d only, no OOP, WIndows-only
Blitz3D: the same as BlitzBasic, but with 3d commands
BlitzPlus: 2d only, but it features some Windows options
BlitzMax: OOP, 2d, 3d with an extension, Windows, Linux and Mac

You see that they are just trying to diverisfy their products by offering different packages to make more money when essentially its just a string of libraries throw together. I'm sure this Blitz anguages has functions, loops, arrays etc ... so how could it possibly be an easy to use programming package for a Noob that does not want to learn basic programming syntax.

>>On the official BlitzBasic site there is a demo: you can use it, but you can't produce executables, and it's time-limited.

Oh look at that whereas with FB you can create anything you want an have an exe on compile.

>>I'm trying to port MiniB3d (an extension to enable 3d commands of BlitzBasic) to FreeBasic: If I can do that, FreeBasic will have the same features as BlitzBasic.

That's Great look people like you doing noble and honorable stuff like building a 3D extension for all to enjoy! But these marketing people for Blitz dress up their application with pretty colors and cool ads and fancy demos and sucker these teenagers into parting with their money promising easy game development and no programming skills required. They are out for a profit!

>>Don't try to torrent BlitzBasic: it's against the law, and also you could get malware by doing that. Also, you won't be able to sell your games (you won't be able to invoke copyright, if you don't respect it). Remember that FreeBasic is free, and 100% legal, and open source (and, if I will ever complete my port of MiniB3d, it will be free and open source, too... do you want to help me doing that?)

Thank you for the advice that would have been dangerous making some game and then not being able to distribute it because of copyrights and piracy.

Yes ofcourse I would like to help you with my below average programming skills ... I do not know what use I can be to you so far i have been through the FB programming manual wiki and started Lachie's tutorials. :)

Yeah I guess with Blitz it's Capitalism VS Free basic Socialism.

[marcov]

I just want to focus on one or two languages and get good at them.

Start by defining what you really want. Learning programming or making games quickly. And what kind of games, and how much can you spend?

P.s. if you have a problem with information overload, might I suggest choosing a different career from programming? :-)

[Prime Productions]

Hello there,

I have used Blitz3D before so here is my two cents,

I personally hate it. First of all, you have to pay $100 while FreeBASIC is free. Secondly, other than 3D and 2D games, you cant do much else. If you want to simply make games, and don't want too much work learning a language, than this might be the way to go. But if you want to be able to do much more than that, I wouldn't recommend it.

Actually, DarkBASIC is better, but I still wouldn't recommend that either.

A second thing is a question of what your goals are. If you want to make top-quality 3D and 2D games that will challenge the current 3D market, I would recommend learning C++ and the Delta3D engine. Then again though, one must think realistically, most of don't have the time, or the varied skill (programming, 3D art, networking, marketing, etc) to complete such a project.

If you just want to program for fun, make games for you and your friends to play, learn FreeBASIC starting from the BASIC's, then work up to learning Irrlicht, (maybe in the future miniB3D, angros47 keep up the good work).

All the best,
David

[agamemnus]

Yeah I guess with Blitz it's Capitalism VS Free basic Socialism.

Ha, interesting comparison. However, Freebasic isn't socialism. ;)

Also, what angros47 was saying about torrenting Blitz Basic was not quite correct. Of course you can legally copyright games you make with Blitz Basic even if you torrented an illegal copy. No one will know the difference. However, it's not "moral".

[Ophelius]

Here's my opinion. At first if you try Dark Basic or Blitz Basic you'll feel happy that it can do lot of fancy things really quickly without much knowledge. But as you get better at programming, you'll feel a box of restrictions around you getting smaller and smaller. Those languages are aimed at beginners who want to show off talent right away, because otherwise it might have to wait a bit longer to do the same thing manually. I would always suggest to take the long road. It's a lot more rewarding in the end and you'll feel a greater sense of accomplishment. But try those other Basic's out a bit. Try the demos and see what they can do. Maybe it's perfect for you.

[KristopherWindsor]

A frien dof mine recommended Blitz basic to me.

Just when I have started getting used to FB and reading Lachie's tutorials this new information has been thrown my way.

This is information overload!

I am now curious to Torrent Blitz and play around with it.

But that is also a drain on my time.

Please convince me otherwise (Tell me the Cons) of using Blitz so that I am not tempted to download it and study it.

My objective is games ... and I can handle Higher Level languages I am not shy of studying a language. I am told that Blitz is for people who do not want to study programming and just throw games together is this true?

Need your help please guide me!

If you're in college like I am, you'll want to move to something career-related, such as C#. It doesn't mean you'll want to stay with FB either, but I use it sometimes because I already know it.

[Ophelius]

You might want to check out Microsoft's XNA Game studio too. I don't know too much about it, but it looks promising. You can program XBox 360 games with it on top of PC games.

[KristopherWindsor]

You might want to check out Microsoft's XNA Game studio too. I don't know too much about it, but it looks promising. You can program XBox 360 games with it on top of PC games.

That's why I mentioned C#. :p

[Ophelius]

I just checked out BlitzMax(2D) and must admit it looks great for making 2D games. Here's what it supports:

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Products/blitzmax.php

If you just want to make games, I don't see why this wouldn't be a great option. I might try it myself.