This topic contains 55 replies, has 15 voices, and was last updated by 
Mark Sibly
1 year, 10 months ago.
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Community Split
I am not sure that there is such thing going on. Personally I have never used Blitz3D or Blitzmax, and I can’t feel it.
From my understanding the “split” occurs due to a feeling that there is some sort of historical continuation over all of these languages. But these languages differ, for example these changes are not only in the matter of how you write the syntax (i.e. Blitz3D->stuctured, Blitzmax->OO), it’s a holistic approach where everything counts, both technically and community wise.
For example if you say that Blitzmax was awesome but it needed a few updates. Forcing these changes to people would blew the language. For example these languages were conceptualized and designed to work in a specific way, and they fulfilled their purpose and were perfected. The fact that the languages remained unchanged is a proof that people still make cool stuff in them, because they would not have to change their existing skills and knowledge to keep up with the changes.
From my experience, introducing changes in an already working system is a risk and sometimes an ambiguous ROI. Even Microsoft who hires the best engineers in the world pereferred to write the Powershell rather than fixing the cmd. This is a matter of stability mostly.
One thing I don’t understand…
Mark Sibly wrote a compiler for BlitzMax, that converts the source code (bmx) direct to .asm code (then FASM build up everything – Windows environment). The toolchain is short and quite fast.
In that years that solution proved that
1. it still works (from win95 to Windows 10! x86 and x64!)
2. file size of .exe are very small
3. speed is still great
4. the ‘basic logic’ of BlitzMax allows to extend the language binding external library (see Brucey and the mountain of modules – Cairo etc!)Cons of that solution:
1. ISA-ASM locked down (so x86 only)
2. other compilers/technologies offer faster (but I doubt smaller) .exe
3. difficult to support ‘alien’ system (like console, android devices, HTML etc)
4. cost support, time development etc (but I don’t say it must be *free*!)I know Mark LIKES to write new programming languages, and do what he likes! (like everyone on this planet!)
But sometimes I ask myself what IF Marks followed the BlitzMax line: maybe (or surely!) another language (MX2 has a lot of new features, more than MX1 and BlitzMax!), with a dedicated toolchain ‘made in Mark’ for ASM compilation.
Only WASM, HTML5 and mobile (Android/iOS) should use external tools (already ‘ready-to-go’ and tested, so not too much time to spent, just make it ‘compatible’).I’m not of course a ‘compiler’ expert, so I can’t valuate correctly what I wrote above.
But I’m quite sure that Mark has specific skill in that area (source-language to .exe/ASM code)The reality of it this is pretty simple. The future is Monkey 2. It’s not Monkey, nor Blitzmax, or anything else. Mark has gone done the MK2 road so that is what needs to work. And I support him on that choice. Rehashing Blitzmax and days gone by aren’t going to help solidify the future which is MK2.
What I want to see is more transparency from Mark on his development and a set of milestones so we know where this is all going. He needs to know where this is all going. Mark has some serious programming chops and he is technically capable of pulling this off but only if he stays focused and doesn’t get distracted on things like moving to 3d before we had a solid and well documented 2d engine to promote the language.
I remember on a blog post from January 3rd, where he made an attempt to clarify the 2017 agenda:
- Publicize mx2 better (and to users ‘beyond the blitz’ – that’s where the future really is…). I have been a bit pathetic here really and will try harder!
- Produce some demo/tutorial vids for youtube.
- Monetize the monetization stuff (ie: charge for admob, iap etc addons)
- Write/sell a simple game in mx2 both to raise funds AND to have a decent ‘this was written in mx2’ demo.
Barely a dent was made into this and now we’re on to 3d. I know 3d was what many supporters on Patreon wanted so I might be in the minority. But leaving so many things unfinished is just irritating and leaves MK2 appealing to a small niche of people. It will never go mainstream if changes aren’t made. That’s just reality.
If only we could clone Mark…
gasmonso
People need to stop looking at mark as a business man or in a lot of regard’s as a professional developer, if you squint your eye’s and glance at him as a bedroom coder or hobbyist then everything starts to make way more sense.
That aside, and since some people are having trouble understanding the split concerns I felt I could throw some light since I was there and watched it unfold.
So Basically we had Blitz2D and a website behind it, Along came Blitz3D which was an extention of the language into the realm of 3D which successfully I might add used the existing community and forum and many of the 2D Users became 3D users, then we moved onto Max a new language and a new way of doing things, but again we kept the same community and again many many of the people from 2D and 3D moved to Max and it was a success, christ I would argue its forums are more active that ours and its ancient now in many regards, so when mark started work on Monkey I think everyone expected the same thing, what actually happened was Mark made a whole new website and SPLIT the community, those that moved to monkey essentially left the old site which removed their presence from that community and moved it to the new monkey site, so now we had the monkey site with a much much smaller userbase, and the the blitz site with a hole where loads of people used to be, and used to post and contribute, this was really bad, people rightly so got pissed and a lots are still pissed. and if that’s not bad enough Mark did it again with Monkey 2 which lets face it, is more like a rewrite and update of monkey than any kind of new language but yet again he SPLIT the community and took a small tiny community of people that was sticking by him and keeping his forums active and he split them in two for a second time.
So yeah while you might not see it, if you didn’t go through it, It’s defiantly a thing.
The Only silver lining in all this is that he’s finally moved to a decent web back end, it’s just a shame he’s still not using it to it’s potential.
@taiphoz one other thing that also happened with the first split was LOADS of coders became disillusioned and moved to other languages and systems. For me the first split was the worst thing that happened in a BRL sense as it gave the old community a sense of abandonment that the lacklustre updates at the time galvanised.
Mark should just merge EVERY community together before he looses all the people that use his stuff. Yes the original community is more active than BOTH the monkey communities combined.
I don’t think he can, I’m not even sure he owns max or blitz3D any more I think he handed them all off, so its possible a full mergers is out of the question because he’s no longer in control.
This thread quickly took an unexpected turn heh.
I believe in you Mark! <3
The 3d module got under way largely because of a big patreon contribution towards that goal. It probably makes the most sense as it will generate a fair amount of interest once there’re demos out. The attention can then go back onto docs and the language, and monetising modules I’d imagine. A little more community growth with more contributors and it’ll slowly happen.
I can understand the thoughts behind merging the communities but that doesn’t necessarily mean more people using m2 because you can’t really force it on anyone.
“The reality of it this is pretty simple. The future is Monkey 2.”
Gasmondo, out of curiosity, what makes you think that way? Before that it was Monkey 1 and before that…
I have no doubts anymore there will be Monkey 3 at some point which is the future then.
But yeah I have no problems with that. My main concern is the lack of communication which makes it impossible for me to plan ahead. Plus Monkey has reached a level of complexity I could ask myself why I shouldn’t use C#/C++ directly.Sorry if that sounds a bit harsh, I don’t want to offend anyone, especially not Mark, as he’s doing an awesome job in some aspects but sucks so hard in some others…
Fun project, make a graph over time, plot data points for user base size and community engagement spanning blitz2,3D,Max,Monkey and now Monkey 2 then draw a line across the top of the data points and project the trend forward.
comments?
For me the heyday of BRL was circa 1999-2003 there was a buzzing community then and you couldn’t read the threads without update after update. What we have now paled in comparison, you can ask a question now and it may never be answered. Back in the day there were ten or so posts to your thread after a few hours.
[edit] where did that come from? sorry
shit now I wana know what you said that was so agro that you felt you needed to delete it.
I had a personal filter malfunction. I think it is a Sunday morning thing, fucks=0…
Well mark did say this:
http://monkey2.monkey-x.com/forums/topic/my-monkey-2-project-by-gstsoftware/#post-8248
Maybe this will be the project that’s a culmination of his life work.
I also don’t think he will work on another compiler project.
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