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Nim version 2.0.0 release candidate

nim-lang.org

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Re: Nim version 2.0.0 release candidate

#31

Post by throwaway_au_1 »

lostdog wrote: post #30
matthiaswh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's apparent from the RFC discussion that there is no consensus on the topic. With little (proven) tangible benefit of making the change, and a large potential for backlash within the small existing community, I'm not certain it's worth the risk for Nim to make this move. https://github.com/nim-lang/RFCs/issues/456

Anyone who wants to use grep will just keep ignoring nim. Case insensitivity is pretty silly, and underscore insensitivy is just really silly. The way that modern languages force a single style is great, and it's a big strike against nim, which is an otherwise nice language.

Ironically they reject tabs and require space indentation. Something something the complexity of supporting both. Yet we have style insensitivity..

Re: Nim version 2.0.0 release candidate

#33

Post by cauthon »

mrichman wrote: post #32

I haven't heard of Nim until now. I've been a Go programmer for years now, and I see a lot of potential. I wonder why Nim hasn't taken off. What's the catch?

A contributing factor may be lack of a major sponsor bootstrapping the user base. Go had Google, Rust had Mozilla, Nim was/is largely indie.

Re: Nim version 2.0.0 release candidate

#34

Post by derbOac »

nicoburns wrote: post #24
UxDnz0 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Carmack has a take on it; https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1592560938208710659...

I think I agree with Carmack on this. I'm hyper aware of case now, but this was probably the major cause of errors for me when learning (didn't help that tooling was less good then, so there were no linters pointing out my errors).

I guess for me it's one of those things I got tripped up on initially but came to appreciate later. It taught me how to be more precise about characters and reasoning about them in code.

There's also cases where case sensitivity should matter in naming in my experience, and it's not possible without it.

Re: Nim version 2.0.0 release candidate

#35

Post by nikhilsimha »

throwaway_au_1 wrote: post #22
derbOac wrote: post #10

I was hoping case sensitivity would be implemented but it seems like it was too controversial. I'm thinking at this point there might be too much resistance.

I didn't know this existed. There's a lot I like about Nim, but total rejection of tab indentation, and now this style insensitivity thing, mean that for me personally, Nim will just stay an interesting language I see on HN from time to time.

I am not a fan of case insensitivity either. But it must be easy to write a case insensitive grep. I wager that a nim grep would already exist.

I do agree that this is a red flag decision.

Re: Nim version 2.0.0 release candidate

#36

Post by satvikpendem »

zozbot234 wrote: post #16
synergy20 wrote: post #14

among nim, zig and rust, I'm most likely to learn nim, it has been there for a while and it is solid and has so many good stuff in it, it just needs more 'marketing'. in particular, python really should help its popularity as their syntax are similar and both are very expressive.

Is syntax really that big of an obstacle to learning a first programming language? The semantics of a C-like language like Nim could hardly be more different to Python's, they're pretty much at opposite ends in the stack.

> Is syntax really that big of an obstacle to learning a first programming language?

Of course. Compare, at the extremes, languages like APL or Brainfuck to something like Python or Scratch. Syntax is a huge factor in people wanting to learn to code or not.

Re: Nim version 2.0.0 release candidate

#37

Post by UxDnz0 »

derbOac wrote: post #34
nicoburns wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I agree with Carmack on this. I'm hyper aware of case now, but this was probably the major cause of errors for me when learning (didn't help that tooling was less good then, so there were no linters pointing out my errors).

I guess for me it's one of those things I got tripped up on initially but came to appreciate later. It taught me how to be more precise about characters and reasoning about them in code. There's also cases where case sensitivity should matter in naming in my experience, and it's not possible without it.

Personally this preciseness is just a distraction, but it sounds like you have learned from the constraints and can now take the training wheels off again.

Very curious about those cases, yet to find one myself that was not because of a bad design decision. Though I am also very big on the idea of `ambiguous grammar, rigorous implementation`, for natural language too. (Toki Pona is a somewhat extreme example but the contextual grammar, and holistic minimalism is fascinating)

Not to make it longer than needs to be; But take the example code in this readme: https://github.com/guzba/mummy

Being able to quickly script this without thinking about cases or style on the first pass is a really lovely way of reducing friction imho.

Re: Nim version 2.0.0 release candidate

#40

Post by intelVISA »

posharma wrote: post #38

Are there any products/companies that use Nim in production?

There's a list in the very announcement: https://github.com/nim-lang/Nim/wiki/Organizations-using-Nim

though I'd imagine the number will remain small as Nim's too artisanal for enterprise to grok.

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