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Socoder -> Blitz -> Blitz3D : Free and OpenSource

Sun, 03 Aug 2014, 17:52
Jayenkai
Seems that, as part of Mark's whole "get a job, move on with your life" plan, he's pretty much giving away the farm.
Blitz3D is now officially free, with source included.

'Cor blimey...

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''Load, Next List!''
Sun, 03 Aug 2014, 18:21
therevillsgames
Just saw this myself... wonder what his plan is now?

I thought with Ploppy's work on DX9 version he could still make money from it?

https://www.blitzmax.com/logs/userlog.php?user=13255&log=1897
Sun, 03 Aug 2014, 19:30
dna
Maybe he saw the competition and thought that this was a way to get more users of the product.

* Wow!! This is just 2 hours old my time. that's pretty new

** Wonderful this except I do not understand how the whole process works together. If B3D ran from one file then I'd have little trouble.

*** I misread that page greatly. I thought the 1.108 was a revision of version 1.1 when its 1.10.8. I hope so.



-=-=-
DNA
Mon, 04 Aug 2014, 03:52
Jayenkai
Mark's always been VERY aware of the competition. The decision to make damn near everything free, isn't anything to do with the competition.
Mark's simply reached a crossroads.
I don't know too much about what's going on in Mark's life, but I get the feeling that he's hit saturation level with Monkey, and that's hit him pretty hard.
See, not everyone cares for a bog-standard "here is a text editor, now write a game" style of language. I do, but I'm in the minority.
I imagine that Mark's sales are pretty consistent with that fact. (I was recently shocked when the Monkey forum hit it's 1,000th user.. That's pretty much just 1,000 sales...)

Those of us who grew up with Blitz still happily buy the latest model, but newcomers are few and far between, and that's a shame.

Mark's hit a point where he has to do "the dull thing" of getting a "proper" job, and .. Well, we're all pretty much struggling.. Life sucks!!
I don't think Mark's given up, he's just having to deal with life, finances and all the other crap.
I have no doubt in my mind that Mark, Monkey and Blitz will still be around in a year or so, but it'll take him a while to settle into a work schedule, and get things sorted.

Good luck, Mark!

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''Load, Next List!''
Mon, 04 Aug 2014, 05:57
steve_ancell
With the amount of Blitz3D users, I'm surprised that Mark needed to get a job, I was originally inclined to thing that BRL was a very successful business.

Mon, 04 Aug 2014, 06:22
Afr0
BlitzPlus is opensourced as well:
https://github.com/blitz-research/blitzplus


This is why you should leave language development to professionals like Microsoft, folks!

-=-=-
Afr0 Games

Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
Mon, 04 Aug 2014, 07:07
steve_ancell
If language development was left to Microsoft, they would lock-out the bedroom coders alltogether.

Mon, 04 Aug 2014, 07:10
Afr0
Huh?
They've been releasing new versions of Visual Studio Express every year for almost a decade now!
You can produce commercial code with it as well, no problem.



-=-=-
Afr0 Games

Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
Mon, 04 Aug 2014, 07:12
steve_ancell
I will emphasise this though...

If Mark had stuck with the same easy to follow format documentation as he did with Blitz3D, Monkey-X would have done heaps better than its current userbase. He also should have chosen a more pro-sounding name, as opposed to monkey. Every time I mention monkey to anyone, they look at me in an odd way and seem to think that monkey programming is to do with the brainwashing of apes.

Mon, 04 Aug 2014, 07:20
Jayenkai
Centipong XNA Test - Written in 2004.
Centipong XNA Test Build - Ran smoothly in 2004.
Centipong XNA Text Build - Stopped running (on THE SAME SYSTEM) in 2005.
Centipong XNA Text Build - Completely refuses to run on my Win 8.1 machine.

This is why you DON'T leave it to Microsoft.
They change FAR too much, FAR too often, and VERY often break entire projects along the way. And, they don't give a shit!

By comparison, I can happily run Blitz2D games I wrote in 2002 on this Win 8.1 machine.

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''Load, Next List!''
Mon, 04 Aug 2014, 07:24
steve_ancell
Afr0 Huh?
They've been releasing new versions of Visual Studio Express every year for almost a decade now!
You can produce commercial code with it as well, no problem.

I know that, but they currently compete with other language and devkit producers. If Microsoft were the only ones producing devkits then it would be a whole new story.

Mon, 04 Aug 2014, 07:29
steve_ancell
On a sub topic, I wonder if the license for opensource Blitz3D allows it to be used freely in educational environments and after school clubs etc!...

|edit| I just put that question on the BB site, awaiting reply. |edit|

Mon, 04 Aug 2014, 07:34
steve_ancell
There are also concerns on the future of the website.

www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=102909
Mon, 04 Aug 2014, 08:51
Afr0
Jay, MonoGame is the future of XNA development.
Thing is, there are so many free alternatives out there developed by teams consiating of professionals and hobbyists, I'm not surprised no one wants to buy Monkey.

-=-=-
Afr0 Games

Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
Mon, 04 Aug 2014, 12:30
dna
Has everyone seen the airplane demo?

Can you do nothing else except walk around the plane?

-=-=-
DNA
Mon, 04 Aug 2014, 15:43
steve_ancell
Afr0 MonoGame is the future of XNA development

I thought Microsoft killed-off XNA though Mats?. ;-/
Tue, 05 Aug 2014, 02:46
Afr0
They stopped releasing new versions, at least. Dunno if they stopped support for XNA 4. Either way, Monogame is an open source implementation of XNA 4.
It ensures that people who enjoy XNA over DirectX can continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
But there's also a couple of DirectX implementations like SharpDX for people who want to use the latest DirectX frameworks in .NET languages.

-=-=-
Afr0 Games

Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
Sun, 10 Aug 2014, 16:33
dna
I'm throwing out Blitz+ since B3D is a superset of Blitz.

Mark fixed the dual screen issue that occurs in BlitzPlus when you use:
PRINT "Whatever text":WAITKEY:END

The IDE use to not terminate tHe wait state and it displayed two screens.



-=-=-
DNA