openSUSE Announces "First Class" Support For The Nim Programming Language

[phoronix]

Phoronix: openSUSE Announces "First Class" Support For The Nim Programming Language

The openSUSE project is talking up their first-class support for the Nim programming language in joining Arch Linux for shipping up-to-date packages for this compiled programming language...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=openSUSE-First-Class-Nim

[Vistaus]

Oh no, another programming language? Prepare for hate posts and lenghty discussions in 3... 2... 1...

[Raka555]

Good to see this. I always thought nim is an under appreciated language.

[Raka555]

Oh no, another programming language? Prepare for hate posts and lenghty discussions in 3... 2... 1...

The rust vultures will certainly pick it apart ...

[Vorpal]

I never heard of this language before. From a quick glance on the website I did not see any standout unique features. Doesn't mean it lacks them, just that I didn't see any.

To me it looks like a modern language with both imperative and functional inspirations. But I would like to know what it's selling point is. What does it do better than the already established alternatives? None of the points on the main page seemed that unique to me.

[ssokolow]

Huh. I'd heard of Nim, but I hadn't been aware that Godot-Nim existed.

[cl333r]

It wants to replace C/C++..., doesn't use curly braces and relies on indentation instead, I don't like it.

[coder]

It wants to replace C/C++..., doesn't use curly braces and relies on indentation instead,

The complexity of C++ is its main downside. And I say that having used it daily, for the past 20 years. I don't mind it, but I've worked with people who clearly weren't interested in investing the time to master it. Its learning curve one of the main things that makes it hard to sell.

If a language offered > 95% of C++'s capabilities with < 10% of its complexity, and the potential for performance rivaling C, that would be compelling. I don't know how well Rust compares on those points, but I worry it's already accumulating significant complexity.

[cl333r]

The complexity of C++ is its main downside. And I say that having used it daily, for the past 20 years. I don't mind it, but I've worked with people who clearly weren't interested in investing the time to master it. Its learning curve one of the main things that makes it hard to sell.

If a language offered > 95% of C++'s capabilities with < 10% of its complexity, and the potential for performance rivaling C, that would be compelling. I don't know how well Rust compares on those points, but I worry it's already accumulating significant complexity.

From a quick glance (if I read it correctly) Nim is >2x slower than Rust, that's too much for a new compiled systems language.

[RedEyed]

Being an ML engineer, and mostly using Python, I like the idea behind the Nim: it tries to unite Python expressiveness and C performance into one language

I found the next main concepts of the Nim
1. Python like syntax (I personally very like it).
2. Reusable compilation: generation to C code -> compiling with any compiler for any platform. Just taking modern compiles without reinventing the wheel.

On the other hand, I think that it's too universal
Therefore I don't believe in massive adoption, because it's neither as expressive as Python nor as fast as C or even Rust.

People choose Python for research, prototyping, scripting, etc
And they choose C/C++/Rust for implementing fast BLAS libraries for specific hardware or writing bootloaders on tiny microcontrollers with 8KB of EEPROM, etc

For what kind of tasks is Nim created for then ?
I think that it was created just for fun as many other important projects like linux, make, git, etc, and it's cool!