BlitzMax is a fine language, and its OO-model is minimalist, but sufficient and easy to grasp. I really don't understand why so many folks here have a problem with OOP - once you've understood the concept, coding OO-style is so much easier and your code has much better maintainability than its functional/procedural counterparts.
BlitzMax' biggest problems are the lack of a roadmap and communication from BRL, its suboptimal documentation and that is is positioned as a language for creating 2D computer games ONLY, while it is an excellent multi-purpose language when you give it the chance.
Its other problems are a lack of certain key features that a modern language should have, and I've mentioned them already a million times: A thread class. A 64-bit compiler. A mature and enhanced GUI class library. A mature database layer. Through documentation. An IDE and a GUI Builder would be nice, but are not anywhere near as important as the other features.
BRL should raise Venture Capital and hire people to do it. With the right marketing behind it, this baby would sell better than sliced bread, especially in the Mac market, where you only have the choice between Objective-C, Objective-C and Objective-C. (Realbasic sucks, and all those Cocoa-bridges are not very attractive.)
But since BRL is more interested in developing another 3D engine, this will never happen, and BlitzMax won't have a real future. It just drives me nuts to see that the creator of the language obviously does not see the full potential of its creation. I don't mind if Mark spends the rest of his life writing game development tools. If that makes him happy, that's fine and I wish him all the best luck and success.
But he should hire more staff who take care of the features that he is not interested in, but are nevertheless in demand by his customers.
If the price of BlitzMax (for OS X) goes up to 500 or 1000 USD - I DON'T CARE and would buy it anyway if it would give me those features. And if BRL choses to sell it on a subscription model, I'd also buy it to get my updates.
As it is now, I cannot with confidence start a project with BlitzMax that I have to maintain for five to ten years or longer, but must fall back to alternatives that I do not like half as much as BlitzMax.
That little language was love at first sight and yes, I know that I am nuts. But so are you guys, too - otherwise you wouldn't be here. ;-)
BlitzMax' biggest problems are the lack of a roadmap and communication from BRL, its suboptimal documentation and that is is positioned as a language for creating 2D computer games ONLY, while it is an excellent multi-purpose language when you give it the chance.
Its other problems are a lack of certain key features that a modern language should have, and I've mentioned them already a million times: A thread class. A 64-bit compiler. A mature and enhanced GUI class library. A mature database layer. Through documentation. An IDE and a GUI Builder would be nice, but are not anywhere near as important as the other features.
BRL should raise Venture Capital and hire people to do it. With the right marketing behind it, this baby would sell better than sliced bread, especially in the Mac market, where you only have the choice between Objective-C, Objective-C and Objective-C. (Realbasic sucks, and all those Cocoa-bridges are not very attractive.)
But since BRL is more interested in developing another 3D engine, this will never happen, and BlitzMax won't have a real future. It just drives me nuts to see that the creator of the language obviously does not see the full potential of its creation. I don't mind if Mark spends the rest of his life writing game development tools. If that makes him happy, that's fine and I wish him all the best luck and success.
But he should hire more staff who take care of the features that he is not interested in, but are nevertheless in demand by his customers.
If the price of BlitzMax (for OS X) goes up to 500 or 1000 USD - I DON'T CARE and would buy it anyway if it would give me those features. And if BRL choses to sell it on a subscription model, I'd also buy it to get my updates.
As it is now, I cannot with confidence start a project with BlitzMax that I have to maintain for five to ten years or longer, but must fall back to alternatives that I do not like half as much as BlitzMax.
That little language was love at first sight and yes, I know that I am nuts. But so are you guys, too - otherwise you wouldn't be here. ;-)