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Ask HN: Why did Nim not catch on like Rust did?

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Ask HN: Why did Nim not catch on like Rust did?

#1
I skimmed through Nim website and some code snippets, and see very exciting features such as macro support, pythonic syntax, transpiles to C/C++/JavaScript, no VM, systems programming language, suitable for hard real-time systems etc. So why has it not caught on as wild fire like Rust?

Also, what is its FFI story? How easy it is to interop with C++ and JavaScript?

Re: Ask HN: Why did Nim not catch on like Rust did?

#2
Nim only went 1.0 at the end of 2019, almost 5 years after Rust went 1.0, and my impression is that Nim has a pretty dedicated and healthy user-base as far as newer languages go. I wouldn't write it off yet.

Probably also Rust having a novel memory management model and being backed by a large organisation (Mozilla) had a lot to do with its early success.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Nim not catch on like Rust did?

#3
Rust had Mozilla's backing, and later other behemoths like Amazon and Microsoft jumped onto the bandwagon.

Corporate support is absolutely essential for a new language to be taken seriously in the industry. If Go weren't associated with Google, people would have laughed that language out of the room long ago. Likewise, it's difficult to imagine TypeScript ever catching on if it didn't have Microsoft's might behind it (even though TypeScript is actually an excellent language).

Without the power of money, you are nothing.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Nim not catch on like Rust did?

#6
For me, the pythonic syntax was what made me not want to try it. Of course it's personal preference, but I can't stand anything that uses the indentation level to structure code. I love my curly braces and formatting tools. I imagine I'm not alone in this, so there goes a chunk of people.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Nim not catch on like Rust did?

#8
Rust has the elevator pitch down: C but memory safe.

"very exciting features such as macro support, pythonic syntax, transpiles to C/C++/JavaScript, no VM, systems programming language, suitable for hard real-time systems etc" is not a good elevator pitch. Its a little bit of everything with no clear focus point.

So I'd say rust had better marketing.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Nim not catch on like Rust did?

#9
post #3

Rust had Mozilla's backing, and later other behemoths like Amazon and Microsoft jumped onto the bandwagon. Corporate support is absolutely essential for a new language to be taken seriously in the industry. If Go weren't associated with Google, people would have laughed that language out of the room long ago. Likewise, it's difficult to imagine TypeScript ever catching on if it didn't have Microsoft's might behind it…

While I agree that corporate support plays a huge role with market share and acceptance, I disagree that Go would have been laughed out of the room. Very likely that a language made by Griesemer, Pike, and Thompson would have got lots of attention. Arguably enough to catch on anyway. These men are already famous, in programming circles. Case in point, look at Jai, with just the star power of Jonathan Blow and how well known that it is. In fact, would not bet against just Ken Thompson (by himself), creating a new language and whether or not it would catch on.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Nim not catch on like Rust did?

#10
I think Nim is a bit younger, and took a while to find it's core features. It also now has better support for multithreading with arc/orc. It has a chance at slow and steady growth. It's maybe not the best at anything though it is well rounded, but mainlyfor me brings back a joy in programming.

Nim has excellent C++ FFI. It's not perfect, but capable of wrapping C++ templates, calling constructors, and virtual methods. Though it can be a pain dealing with inner template types and consts. Here's a larger example of C++ interfacing with Unreal Engine: https://github.com/jmgomez/NimForUE

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