Extended Language

The Extended language adds focused tools for structuring larger programs while remaining true to the original Blitz philosophy: readable source, compact ideas, predictable execution, and direct control over data and object lifetime.

Built on the original language

Extended mode is an opt-in layer over the original language. Existing statements, expressions, functions, custom Types, commands, and explicit resource-management rules continue to work in the same way. Programs can adopt the additional features where they improve clarity without being pushed into a different programming model.

The additions deliberately avoid a large class framework or hidden ownership system. Objects are still created and deleted explicitly, collections state what they contain, and the flow of a program remains visible in its source.

Focused additions

• Long and Double add true 64-bit integer and binary64 language, storage, ABI, bit-cast, and deterministic-math support.
• Enums give related integer constants a clear qualified name.
• Type Initialisation provides field defaults and lightweight constructors.
• Type Methods keep behaviour beside the data it operates on.
• Collections provide typed List, Map, Set, Queue, and Stack containers.
• Multidimensional Arrays provide fixed-size square-bracket storage.
• Interfaces define small contracts between otherwise unrelated Types.
• Jobs and Worker Functions run isolated CPU and read-only file work in the background while the main program remains responsive.
• Modules let shared source and precompiled code expose qualified public APIs without naming clashes.
• Application Data provides owned JSON values, UUIDs, SHA-256, text codecs, Unicode paths, and atomic files.

Together these features bring extra expressive power without replacing the language's procedural foundations or making simple programs more complicated.

Using Extended mode

Windows 64-bit, Mac and web use Extended automatically. Windows 32-bit uses Original. Language mode is separate from source dialect: Dialect "modern" can provide modern type annotations and member-access spelling in either Original or Extended mode.