nice port.
but why the need to compare two different things? blitzbasic doesn't even compile to machine code, it's byte code... and the reason the exes are big is simply because all the libraries are linked, in fact, it's the main library that ends up being huge - but I tell you what, you add all that functionality using PB and you'll go way over 1MB in your DLL.
you should compare pb against c++ and see by yourself how slow pb really is
at least it'll be a realistic comparison in the sense that both languages compile to machine code. although unfair since pb is a basement project and c++ comes from a history of over 30 years from the c base.
don't get me wrong about that but it's just pointless to compare A with Z, what matters in the end is the product you come up with. if that product happens to require high performance XYZ then you'll probably want to go with C++ since performance outweighs executable size any day.
blitzbasic is in the past anyway, blitzmax is in my opinion an OK language and the compiler isn't too bad either, what really makes it shine is the fact that the libraries are open sourced (and yes, this is very useful - not only you get to learn from their code but also enhance it if required). by now you made this false picture of me being a blitz* fanboy, however I'm not.
I'm just merely pointing out that it's very unfair to compare two opposite things... just because you can doesn't mean it's right.
As a side note... code size (read as "compiled executable size") doesn't really matter if it has a purpose. for instance, one way of optimization is loop unrolling, inlining of functions and whatnot; they all increase the executable size - yet it doesn't mean its worse. Also, don't forget about alternative code paths (fixed, sse*, mmx, etc) they too increase the executable size, but it provides a fair increase in performance, at the expense of a bigger size. fair? yes, very.
Sure, the bigger exe is harder to share if you're on a 56kbps connection and it uses more system ram but those are two problems from the past.
However I'm still not sure why mark sibley (or however you spell his name) didn't compile his engine in separate modules back in the day... I'm guessing it would of added extra complexity on his sucky code and time was running out
