Why I Use Nim instead of Python for Data Processing

Post by jorams » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 3:49 PM UTC

losvedir wrote: post #128

I notice that python has `rstrip` while `nim` doesn't. Python's `rstrip()` is allocating a whole new line there. Does the nim iterator skip over whitespace or something? Do those bits of code output the same thing? The presence or absence of the whitespace will affect the `total` count.

Post by teleforce » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 4:21 PM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #78

Why do we use Python for data processing? Because we use it as a nice syntactic frontend to numpy, a large and highly optimized library written in C++ and Fortran (sic). That is, we actually don't use "Python-native" code much, and numpy is essentially APL-like array-oriented thing where e.g. you don't normally need loops. For native-language data processing, Python is slow; Nim or Julia would easily outperform it, w…

Post by dTal » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

teleforce wrote: post #134

nine_k wrote: post #78

Why do we use Python for data processing? Because we use it as a nice syntactic frontend to numpy, a large and highly optimized library written in C++ and Fortran (sic). That is, we actually don't use "Python-native" code much, and numpy is essentially APL-like array-oriented thing where e.g. you don't normally need loops. For native-language data processing, Python is slow; Nim or Julia would easily outperform it, w…

Please add D language to the mix as well. Interestingly, you can simply replace Nim with D in the blog article and most of the contents will still make sense! The funny thing is that Nim and Julia libraries are still wrapping Fortran numerical library while D has beaten the old and trusted Fortran library in its home turf five years back: http://blog.mir.dlang.io/glas/benchmark/openblas/2016/09/23/...

Post by dunefox » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

gameswithgo wrote: post #105

piqufoh wrote: post #31

Python sometimes runs slowly, because it's not designed to run fast. It's designed to be readable and easy to write, which in turn makes developing python faster. It's a compromise, but I always prioritise _my_ time over my computers time, so if I can write something quickly and just go and get a coffee while it runs - I will do that. I won't spend twice as long writing a single-run script just because it'll finish b…

You can have Python syntax without Python slow.

Post by iamcreasy » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

kgeist wrote: post #57

DeathArrow wrote: post #41

While Nim is for certain interesting and even pleasant to write code in, its small user base and environment discourage people to use it. I don't write code only for myself. How would I convince my employer to let me use Nim instead of a better known language? And even I would convince my employer, if we want to start a new project how could we find programmers well-versed in Nim? And even id we can find those people…

>if we want to start a new project how could we find programmers well-versed in Nim? If a programmer can't pick up a language like Nim in a few weekends (from what I gather, it's similar to Python and not much different from most common languages, i.e. not something relatively exotic like Haskell) then I don't know. Our mainly PHP shop transitioned to Go quite effortlessly. Today we hire PHP juniors without any Go ex…