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Nim 1.6.2

nim-lang.org

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Re: Nim 1.6.2

#91

Post by sekao »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #81
FridgeSeal wrote: post #72

Nim is everything Python and Go should be/want to be, as far as language features and semantics go (haha). It has their easy-to-learn properties, but has a better type system, the generics system and macros are arguably more useful, and more usable than what is offered in either language. It deserves far more attention than it currently gets.

I like Nim, and probably will learn it at some point. But no, Nim is not everything "python should/want to be". The name case insensitivity and the implicit imports on the global namespaces are perfect examples of stuff that are better in Python.

I've been using nim for a few years. I wouldn't have made either design choice (i always do qualified imports, it's just a few extra characters of typing). That said, there is a reason these superficial things always come up in HN threads. If you haven't used a language before, syntax is the only thing you can talk about. It's the equivalent of low effort political banter and the dopamine hit you get from junk food or watching a tiktok. These things melted away after my first 30 minutes with the language, and that's about when the real work began.

Re: Nim 1.6.2

#92

Post by nerdponx »

warent wrote: post #79

I've vaguely heard of Nim in the past and for some reason always thought it was some limited scripting language. But this looks like a pretty serious candidate for a nice backend language. I'm getting tired of how cumbersome Go is and have had my eye on Crystal. Anyone have any insight on how Nim stacks up to Crystal?

I have written toy programs in Nim and Crystal, and the Nim experience is much more polished.

The Nim compiler is as fast as the Crystal compiler is slow!

I think Crystal is more enjoyable to use, personally. I am not a Ruby programmer, but Crystal just somehow feels fun to use. Nim by contrast feels very utilitarian, and frankly more practical.

I found the Nim language documentation better than Crystal, the Crystal standard library docs are just as good as Nim.

Nim overall feels like an "early 1.0-ish" language. Crystal feels like they went to 1.0 m too early. I would probably consider using Nim in a medium-sized application for work, whereas I wouldn't feel comfortable with Crystal for more than a personal hobby project.

They do have some things in common (macros, C interop, static types), but aren't really similar languages. I used to lump them together in my head as "those two new languages", but I don't anymore after trying them both.

If you are checking out new-ish languages, I hear Kotlin has some good design decisions that people appreciate (but that the tooling is pretty bad outside of Jetbrains IDEs).

Re: Nim 1.6.2

#93

Post by adamrt »

klibertp wrote: post #90
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Nim, and probably will learn it at some point. But no, Nim is not everything "python should/want to be". The name case insensitivity and the implicit imports on the global namespaces are perfect examples of stuff that are better in Python.

Implicit imports on the global namespaces? What do you mean? Case insensitivity is somewhat complex topic in Nim, as there are some places where the case actually matters, plus there are some more rules for equivalence of identifiers (related to `_` IIRC). In any case, it was never a problem for me in practice; nimsuggest works quite well.

> Implicit imports on the global namespaces? What do you mean?

Not OP, but they are referring to `import std/strformat` (from homepage). That just imported things into the global namespace. Maybe that isn't required and its just for short examples, I don't know.

Go and Python can both import into the global namespace too (`from thing import *` and `import . somepackage`), but they are pretty frowned upon in most projects.

Re: Nim 1.6.2

#94

Post by juki »

galangalalgol wrote: post #76
spaniard89277 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone learning programming, should I try nim for my first compiled language, instead of C++? I know it's likely harder to find answers in the Internet, but at the same time it looks easier, coming from Python and JS. If nim picks up pace in a few years and I already have a sense of it, it may be a good for prospects too.

If you already know python and JS I think you probably won't have too much trouble with Nim, but why not add something new like memory management to learn about? Rust is complicated, but it has training wheels, and its wasm support would integrate with your JS knowledge. Alternatively modern C is still used everywhere and will teach you a lot about hardware.

> but why not add something new like memory management to learn about?

You can learn that with Nim too. It supports manual memory management like C. The new ARC/ORC GC also works more like modern C++ than a traditional GC.

> its wasm support would integrate with your JS knowledge

Nim can also compile to JS. Or you could compile it first to C and then compile that to wasm, although that's not supported out of the box.

Re: Nim 1.6.2

#95

Post by nerdponx »

rakoo wrote: post #18
formerly_proven wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a interested in Nim until I learned that getBlochenAngle and get__B_L_O_C_H_E_N_ANGLE are the same identifier. > https://nim-lang.org/docs/manual.html#lexical-analysis-ident...

My personal blocker is that identifiers are all imported globally by convention, so when you see that there is a call to a method called "get", you have to get to the top of the file or mouse over the call to see what lib it is from. A "get" from the http lib is not the same as a "get" from the kv store lib.

Don't Haskell and Go also do this?

Re: Nim 1.6.2

#96

Post by klibertp »

posharma wrote: post #3

Genuinely curious - why should I care about Nim? There are already a plethora of general purpose languages (both compiled and interpreted). Also, is anyone using Nim today? What's the adoption?

> Genuinely curious - why should I care about Nim?

You definitely shouldn't. If you need a reason to care, then Nim is simply not for you. You won't benefit from Nim, and Nim won't benefit from you. It's best to agree to disagree and walk away from each other (assuming Nim can walk).

EDIT: I got downvoted a bit here, probably because the above seemed rude and/or dismissive? If so, sorry, that wasn't my intention. What I meant to say is that with languages like Nim it doesn't make sense to be interested in them if you're not already interested in programming languages. It'll be another 10-20 years before Nim becomes something the general populace of programmers should (or, if we're lucky, would have to) care about. So if you don't have a particular reason to be interested in Nim, chances are you won't get such a reason from anything that can be said about Nim at this time.

Basically, asking the quoted question already means that there's nothing you'd care about in Nim.

Re: Nim 1.6.2

#97

Post by amedvednikov »

jokoon wrote: post #30
posharma wrote: post #3

Genuinely curious - why should I care about Nim? There are already a plethora of general purpose languages (both compiled and interpreted). Also, is anyone using Nim today? What's the adoption?

If I would pick one, I would pick Zig. The language that is missing is a simple language that can work well with C or C++, compiles fast, is easy to read, has a good lib, etc. There are not enough non-GC languages that are statically compiled. I really, really want a pythonic, statically compiled language. I don't want templates, OOP, abstract stuff, just A C-like language, more readable, with good syntactic sugar. M…

> The language that is missing is a simple language that can work well with C or C++, compiles fast, is easy to read, has a good lib, etc.

https://vlang.io ?

Re: Nim 1.6.2

#98

Post by idoubtit »

nerdponx wrote: post #88
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Nim, and probably will learn it at some point. But no, Nim is not everything "python should/want to be". The name case insensitivity and the implicit imports on the global namespaces are perfect examples of stuff that are better in Python.

IMO people really should stop comparing it to Python, it's a very different language.

Your opinion contradicts the official description of Nim on the language's home page:

> Nim is a statically typed compiled systems programming language. It combines successful concepts from mature languages like Python, Ada and Modula.

Also, the "Features" page contains "Inspired by Python" twice, and "concepts from Ada and Modula" once.

Re: Nim 1.6.2

#99

Post by vlovich123 »

nicoburns wrote: post #85
spaniard89277 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone learning programming, should I try nim for my first compiled language, instead of C++? I know it's likely harder to find answers in the Internet, but at the same time it looks easier, coming from Python and JS. If nim picks up pace in a few years and I already have a sense of it, it may be a good for prospects too.

Consider either Rust or Go of you want something easier than C++, but that still has a large community and lots of learning resources.

Go yes. Rust? I wouldn’t say that Rust is easier although I may be biased with my long C/C++ background. The ownership model is a pretty complex thing to learn. I guess maybe if you Box a lot?

It does have an easier on-ramp story for getting started/adding dependencies and that may be important for getting started.

Re: Nim 1.6.2

#100

Post by rickstanley »

nerdponx wrote: post #92
warent wrote: post #79

I've vaguely heard of Nim in the past and for some reason always thought it was some limited scripting language. But this looks like a pretty serious candidate for a nice backend language. I'm getting tired of how cumbersome Go is and have had my eye on Crystal. Anyone have any insight on how Nim stacks up to Crystal?

I have written toy programs in Nim and Crystal, and the Nim experience is much more polished. The Nim compiler is as fast as the Crystal compiler is slow! I think Crystal is more enjoyable to use, personally. I am not a Ruby programmer, but Crystal just somehow feels fun to use. Nim by contrast feels very utilitarian, and frankly more practical. I found the Nim language documentation better than Crystal, the Crystal…

There's Kotlin script if I recall correctly. But not that developed yet nor easy to use outside jetbrains ecosystem (IDEA).
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