Nim has a python-like syntax, but I wish they'd gone farther, using `def` instead of `proc` and a `print` function instead of the `echo` statement. Though even if they did those things, I'm not sure it would really feel like programming Python.
As a long-time Python programmer, I was drawn to trying the language partly because of the syntax, but as soon as I tried to write something substantial, Nim's heritage in languages like Pascal, Modula, and Ada starts to show. Syntax notwithstanding, programming in it really felt more like programming in Pascal/Modula.
I in fact did not know anything about Nim's history or design choices when I started using it, but I'm old enough to have written a fair amount of Pascal, and I was not long into using Nim when I started thinking, "this feels weirdly familiar." `type` and `var` blocks, ordinal types, array indexing with enums, etc.
Thank you for working on the Nim Compiler. This is great. Another great release. The Nim Compiler continues to move forward.
Thank you very much to everyone who has contributed to the development of this superior language. Nim Compiler continues to be one of the most wonderful languages I have worked with. With the speed of C and the simplicity of Python, it has allowed me to write a lot of cool software.
I do not know where I would be if Nim did not exist in my life.
Nice! Nim has been great for us - fast to code in and even faster once compiled! We're using it for the backend and microservices at https://cxplanner.com and loving it.
While it's ecosystem probably does not even match Julia's let alone Python's or the C/FORTRAN-verses, since Nim has been around for almost 20 years and publicly since 2008, there are still a lot of accumulated packages. Some are listed at: https://github.com/ringabout/awesome-nim for really a large (and even so still incomplete!) list of things you might be interested in. Hard to say how well maintained they are. That said, you do probably have to be prepared to do a lot of work yourself and work around compiler limitiations/bugs. Also, binding to C libs is very straightforward with a near trivial FFI.
I suppose it very much depends on the programmer & setting, but like 3 times I've looked for Rust projects similar to Nim ones and found the performance of the Rust quite lacking. Of course, any language that allows you access to assembly makes things ultimately "only" a matter of programmer effort, but the effort to get performance out of Nim seems very competitive in my experience. I've seen at least one ancient 1990s C project be more flexible and much faster in Nim at like 6% the LOC (https://github.com/c-blake/procs for the curious).
for anyone reading this, and curious, i'm learning nim with raylib. (naylib is the nim wrapper around raylib). and i'm making the code comments and the display show what's happening, making the nim files into discrete lessons, for myself as well as you. as of today's date, i've done the vectors and most of the graphics lessons, with sound effects coming soon.. https://github.com/stOneskull/nim
Agreed, Nim is a fantastic language and heavily under-rated. Moved from Swift about 12 months ago and development has never been more
Pleasant.
My only complaint is that the threading/async model and how memory and GC pools are managed per thread took me a bit to get used to, but the speed and C FFI are fantastic.
Also would say that the community is very helpful, particularly on the Discord/IRC channels I have used.
The main release note here is more stable async. I’m curious how folks using nim feel about the async situation.
One of the most recent opinions from the discord is:
“ we have async and asyncdispatch but its leaky and bug prone esp when used with threads and causes deep ownership issues, i prefer using taskman when possible but it leaves the IO problem yet unsolved ”
I’ve also been told to just use regular threads whenever possible.
As one who was interested by Nim and tried it out for some personal projects, I found that this was the biggest problem with the project. There's several options for any given need (including internal tools like LSP or installing the compiler) with very little clear way to choose between them. Each will have different (dis)advantages that you must discover primarily by digging through forum posts or GitHub issues.
In some ways it's the sign of a very strong language, like the curse of Lisp: someone can easily just write their own version of whatever they need. But as a user trying to navigate the ecosystem it is frustrating. I do keep meaning to try it out again though; the language itself is very pleasant to use.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 35.2 ms ] threadmore mature than zig, much easier than rust.
https://nim-lang.org/docs/mm.html
https://nim-lang.org/araq/nimony.html https://github.com/nim-lang/nimony
As a long-time Python programmer, I was drawn to trying the language partly because of the syntax, but as soon as I tried to write something substantial, Nim's heritage in languages like Pascal, Modula, and Ada starts to show. Syntax notwithstanding, programming in it really felt more like programming in Pascal/Modula.
I in fact did not know anything about Nim's history or design choices when I started using it, but I'm old enough to have written a fair amount of Pascal, and I was not long into using Nim when I started thinking, "this feels weirdly familiar." `type` and `var` blocks, ordinal types, array indexing with enums, etc.
Thank you very much to everyone who has contributed to the development of this superior language. Nim Compiler continues to be one of the most wonderful languages I have worked with. With the speed of C and the simplicity of Python, it has allowed me to write a lot of cool software.
I do not know where I would be if Nim did not exist in my life.
I suppose it very much depends on the programmer & setting, but like 3 times I've looked for Rust projects similar to Nim ones and found the performance of the Rust quite lacking. Of course, any language that allows you access to assembly makes things ultimately "only" a matter of programmer effort, but the effort to get performance out of Nim seems very competitive in my experience. I've seen at least one ancient 1990s C project be more flexible and much faster in Nim at like 6% the LOC (https://github.com/c-blake/procs for the curious).
My only complaint is that the threading/async model and how memory and GC pools are managed per thread took me a bit to get used to, but the speed and C FFI are fantastic.
Also would say that the community is very helpful, particularly on the Discord/IRC channels I have used.
One of the most recent opinions from the discord is:
“ we have async and asyncdispatch but its leaky and bug prone esp when used with threads and causes deep ownership issues, i prefer using taskman when possible but it leaves the IO problem yet unsolved ”
I’ve also been told to just use regular threads whenever possible.
Do others have more info or sentiments to share?
In some ways it's the sign of a very strong language, like the curse of Lisp: someone can easily just write their own version of whatever they need. But as a user trying to navigate the ecosystem it is frustrating. I do keep meaning to try it out again though; the language itself is very pleasant to use.