I can't really tell you what I would like in a programming language, but one of the reasons I like using Blitz so much is that all the keywords make sense. FreeEntity, CreateBank, ImagesCollide, CopyRect, etc. The thing I don't like about PHP is all the functions have special names and sometimes unusual parameter ordering, so I have to go look up the functions before I can use them - big waste of time when I just wanna use it.
Another big reason I use Blitz is it doesn't take a lot of code to get things up and running. When you create a 3D program, you don't even need any setup commands before you can display a scene or an object. In my dealings with OpenGL and what I know of DirectX, there's 100's of lines of code to just set up the environment. Sure, not everyone wants to have the same setup to their scene, but most will. If you want to create an environment with unique properties, let the user specify that, but otherwise go by some default values.
The biggest thing that pulls me away from using C# is its sheer size of commands. I don't even know what half of them are used for, even in only the string class. Sure, there's a lot you can do, but I have to spend lots of time trying to find the one function that does what I need, and then I have to use a dozen others to manipulate the objects to use the function properly. For this reason I think XNA is heading in the wrong direction. There are so many objects you have to manipulate just to call one function that, even though you're running only one line, your lines can be several pages wide. I want a language with simple data structures, not a robust object system that does everything.
A language should be easy to pick up and go far with, without using a huge amount of command names. Blitz is very good at that, but it only goes so far into controlling the operations.
Just my two cents, hope that helps ya.
Another big reason I use Blitz is it doesn't take a lot of code to get things up and running. When you create a 3D program, you don't even need any setup commands before you can display a scene or an object. In my dealings with OpenGL and what I know of DirectX, there's 100's of lines of code to just set up the environment. Sure, not everyone wants to have the same setup to their scene, but most will. If you want to create an environment with unique properties, let the user specify that, but otherwise go by some default values.
The biggest thing that pulls me away from using C# is its sheer size of commands. I don't even know what half of them are used for, even in only the string class. Sure, there's a lot you can do, but I have to spend lots of time trying to find the one function that does what I need, and then I have to use a dozen others to manipulate the objects to use the function properly. For this reason I think XNA is heading in the wrong direction. There are so many objects you have to manipulate just to call one function that, even though you're running only one line, your lines can be several pages wide. I want a language with simple data structures, not a robust object system that does everything.
A language should be easy to pick up and go far with, without using a huge amount of command names. Blitz is very good at that, but it only goes so far into controlling the operations.
Just my two cents, hope that helps ya.