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Ask HN: Does anyone use Nim language in production?

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Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use Nim language in production?

#11

Post by sharmi »

dom96 wrote: post #3

Judging by the upvotes there is a lot of interest in hearing answers to this question and yet there are few comments so far. I will share my thoughts but keep in mind that I am (extremely) biased as I am one of the core Nim devs. > How has your experience been compared to your previous tech? Previous to using Nim I was primarily using Python. This was a few years ago now, but recently I was working on a project in Py…

Than you. I currently work in python, so your answer is relateable. What do you think is the best resource to start learning Nim?

Edit: I just found from your profile, you are tha author of vim in action! I suppose that is where I start!

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use Nim language in production?

#12

Post by michaelcampbell »

dom96 wrote: post #3

Judging by the upvotes there is a lot of interest in hearing answers to this question and yet there are few comments so far. I will share my thoughts but keep in mind that I am (extremely) biased as I am one of the core Nim devs. > How has your experience been compared to your previous tech? Previous to using Nim I was primarily using Python. This was a few years ago now, but recently I was working on a project in Py…

> It produces fast dependency-free binaries

It does use glibc, right?

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use Nim language in production?

#13

Post by sharmi »

dom96 wrote: post #3

Judging by the upvotes there is a lot of interest in hearing answers to this question and yet there are few comments so far. I will share my thoughts but keep in mind that I am (extremely) biased as I am one of the core Nim devs. > How has your experience been compared to your previous tech? Previous to using Nim I was primarily using Python. This was a few years ago now, but recently I was working on a project in Py…

I love the simple and clean syntax of Nim. The first time I was very impressed with vim was when I used a wikipedia xml dump parser. What would have literally taken days to complete in Python (atleast on my machine, and god forbid if it had crashed somewhere in the middle) was done in a few mins by nim (again on the same machine). I was blown away!

The one thing that concerns me a bit is that identifiers are partial case-insensitive right?

(That means only the first letters are compared in a case sensitive manner. Other letters are compared case insensitively and underscores are ignored.)

Does it hinder when you need to do refactoring?

Also, I work in vim, and grep for stuff when I need. I am not sure if autosuggests and locating definitions/usage for variables would work. I am sure I must be wrong as I believe the core developers would have thought about it :) I just would like to know how

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use Nim language in production?

#14

Post by dmlorenzetti »

throwaway7645 wrote: post #6

I've just started writing a few scripts I'd normally use Python for (no production) and have been impressed with the speed and binary sizes. Nim in Action (book) is really good and what is missing to get the beginner started. I'd like to see a PyCharm like IDE for Nim as well, but Vim seems to work well.

For those interested in "Nim in Action", its publisher, Manning has a 50% off all e-books sale going through midnight today (27-May). Use code `wm052717lt`.

Usually when they have this sort of sale on a holiday weekend, they spin up some new 50% off sale the following day, so check in again Sunday if you missed it today.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use Nim language in production?

#15

Post by jacquesm »

sharmi wrote: post #11
dom96 wrote: post #3

Judging by the upvotes there is a lot of interest in hearing answers to this question and yet there are few comments so far. I will share my thoughts but keep in mind that I am (extremely) biased as I am one of the core Nim devs. > How has your experience been compared to your previous tech? Previous to using Nim I was primarily using Python. This was a few years ago now, but recently I was working on a project in Py…

Than you. I currently work in python, so your answer is relateable. What do you think is the best resource to start learning Nim? Edit: I just found from your profile, you are tha author of vim in action! I suppose that is where I start!

Vim? :)

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use Nim language in production?

#16

Post by girvo »

sharmi wrote: post #13
dom96 wrote: post #3

Judging by the upvotes there is a lot of interest in hearing answers to this question and yet there are few comments so far. I will share my thoughts but keep in mind that I am (extremely) biased as I am one of the core Nim devs. > How has your experience been compared to your previous tech? Previous to using Nim I was primarily using Python. This was a few years ago now, but recently I was working on a project in Py…

I love the simple and clean syntax of Nim. The first time I was very impressed with vim was when I used a wikipedia xml dump parser. What would have literally taken days to complete in Python (atleast on my machine, and god forbid if it had crashed somewhere in the middle) was done in a few mins by nim (again on the same machine). I was blown away! The one thing that concerns me a bit is that identifiers are partial…

Because Nim has an excellent 'compiler service', the symbols can be identified at the AST level instead of the textual level. In practice, most code bases stick to some conventions, and the possible ambiguity is rarely an issue, in my experience

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use Nim language in production?

#17

Post by sharmi »

girvo wrote: post #16
sharmi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the simple and clean syntax of Nim. The first time I was very impressed with vim was when I used a wikipedia xml dump parser. What would have literally taken days to complete in Python (atleast on my machine, and god forbid if it had crashed somewhere in the middle) was done in a few mins by nim (again on the same machine). I was blown away! The one thing that concerns me a bit is that identifiers are partial…

Because Nim has an excellent 'compiler service', the symbols can be identified at the AST level instead of the textual level. In practice, most code bases stick to some conventions, and the possible ambiguity is rarely an issue, in my experience

Is there a style guideline for nim like pep8?

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use Nim language in production?

#18

Post by sharmi »

sharmi wrote: post #11
dom96 wrote: post #3

Judging by the upvotes there is a lot of interest in hearing answers to this question and yet there are few comments so far. I will share my thoughts but keep in mind that I am (extremely) biased as I am one of the core Nim devs. > How has your experience been compared to your previous tech? Previous to using Nim I was primarily using Python. This was a few years ago now, but recently I was working on a project in Py…

Than you. I currently work in python, so your answer is relateable. What do you think is the best resource to start learning Nim? Edit: I just found from your profile, you are tha author of vim in action! I suppose that is where I start!

Edit edit: nim in action :)

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use Nim language in production?

#19

Post by ddlsmurf »

sharmi wrote: post #13
dom96 wrote: post #3

Judging by the upvotes there is a lot of interest in hearing answers to this question and yet there are few comments so far. I will share my thoughts but keep in mind that I am (extremely) biased as I am one of the core Nim devs. > How has your experience been compared to your previous tech? Previous to using Nim I was primarily using Python. This was a few years ago now, but recently I was working on a project in Py…

I love the simple and clean syntax of Nim. The first time I was very impressed with vim was when I used a wikipedia xml dump parser. What would have literally taken days to complete in Python (atleast on my machine, and god forbid if it had crashed somewhere in the middle) was done in a few mins by nim (again on the same machine). I was blown away! The one thing that concerns me a bit is that identifiers are partial…

Identifiers are "style-insensitive", so case changes and single underscore insertions don't actually change the identifier. There is exhaustive tooling such as nimgrep and ide support built into the compiler (such as find symbol at point equivalents) for helping when a convention is different. It is a strong philosophical position, but it does allow style consistency across a code base even when dealing with foreign symbols.
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