Hello there Erik, welcome to Omnimaga! Hope you enjoy your stay!

Heya and welcome here!

Check out Axe Parser on here; it's a language that compiles to ASM so you don't have to do any incantations on large projects.

Indeed, Axe is a really nice language, and while it looks like BASIC at first, it's completely different (you have low level memory access and all that fancy stuff, in addition to a highly optimized standard library which makes your programs run extremely fast). SSBO is written mostly in Axe (it does use some ASM but that's unavoidable on such a large scale project).

Anyway, welcome to Omnimaga, and enjoy your stay !

I don't know a ton but I will do my best.

asm (assembly): basically, the absolutely lowest level programming you can get (other than stabbing it with a needle). Because of this, it isn't exactly 'user friendly'. However, with the costs come great benefits. Assembly can be used for just about anything, limited to the power of the hardware and your imagination. This will be the absolutely fastest for a program to run. (Compiled)

Ti-Basic: Pretty much molded on the BASIC language.  There are high limitations including major loss of speed. Best for math, and games made from it are hackish in general. (run-time)

Ion: Not quite sure. Pretty sure it is just an extra library for you to use (compiled)

Axe: Extremely fast and user friendly language. It is only one level higher than asm, so there is little loss in speed if any.  Axe is mainly only for games, BUT you can include asm code inside it, so you can use it to structure your asm. (compiled)

Hi Erik!
Welcome to omnimaga and have some peanuts!
 
And i can really recommend the axe language as it's really user friendly, easy to learn (not as easy as BASIC tho) and it's just as fast as assembly

I think Ion is an assembly library

Ion, MirageOS, and DoorsCS are shells (environments for running assembly programs in) that provide libraries (additional, useful functions) for assembly programs. Sort of like the libraries xLIB, Celtic III, and DoorsCS provide for BASIC programs.

By the way, welcome!

Hi! My name is Erik and I just learned about this TI-Calc community! I've learned about the promising prototype of Super Smash Bros. Open via YouTube, and it is really something! I myself don't know how to program in Assembly or any other programming languages on a TI calculator, since I am just a hobbyist, but I do know how to program basic games and applications in TI-BASIC.

We're all hobbyists here