4 ms·

Can you share some works one can do with Nim?

by a012 8y ago

jblindsay 8y ago
I used Nim a little while back to write a small CLI program that performs a feature-preserving smoothing of digital terrain data (see https://github.com/jblindsay/fp_denoise https://github.com/jblindsay/fp_denoise). I could have used, and have used, several of languages for this type of application. But I was interested in learning Nim and getting a feel for how well it lends itself to spatial analysis. I was quite pleased with the experience overall. The language feels a lot like a high-level language with the speed of a systems language. The one thing that I didn't find particularly easy was concurrency. I still haven't managed to figure that out but that is more a comment on my limitations than the language. Nonetheless, I can certainly see Nim taking off for data science once it hits v1.0.
PMunch 8y ago
Not 100% sure what you mean by works, but Nim has been used to create various things. For one the entire Nim forum: https://forum.nim-lang.org/ https://forum.nim-lang.org/ is written in Nim (both back-end and front-end), the game "Reel Valley" has been written in Nim, there is a company doing Ethereum blockchain using Nim: https://status.im/ https://status.im/, and many more.
- a012 8y ago
  That's impressive. I'm curious whether I can use Nim in sysadmin job.
  - kaushalmodi 8y ago
    I am dabbling in Nim, and plan to replace bash/Python scripts with Nim. So far it looks really promising! Few projects: nbuild[1], ntangle[2]. I wouldn't say that these are exemplary projects.. but they just show that Nim can replace bash/Python for command line utilities. [1]: https://github.com/kaushalmodi/nbuild/ https://github.com/kaushalmodi/nbuild/ [2]: https://github.com/kaushalmodi/ntangle/ https://github.com/kaushalmodi/ntangle/
  - sigzero 8y ago
    I'd say "it depends". If I was a solo sysadmin or a small team, I would probably use it. Big teams are harder to get "buy in" for a new language.
  - gtrs 8y ago
    Totally feasible, I ported Python code to Nim and it was super easy and I got a huge performance boost. If performance isn't a big deal, the other thing I've noticed is that compilation guarantees a much higher quality of code compared to interpretation. At least compared to Python, I have been hit by bad code which didn't get caught because there was no test for it. I've not faced that with Nim yet. No doubt you can still have issues but it's one less thing to worry about.
    - kungtotte 8y ago
      You also gain portability; no worrying about which Python version is installed on a target machine for example.
  - nimmer 8y ago
    Nim competes very well with Python, Go and Rust in the sysadmin / system library / daemons space.

Can you share some works one can do with Nim?

by a012 8y ago

Can you share some works one can do with Nim?

I used Nim a little while back to write a small CLI program that performs a feature-preserving smoothing of digital terrain data (see https://github.com/jblindsay/fp_denoise https://github.com/jblindsay/fp_denoise). I could have used, and have used, several of languages for this type of application. But I was interested in learning Nim and getting a feel for how well it lends itself to spatial analysis. I was quite pleased with the experience overall. The language feels a lot like a high-level language with the speed of a systems language. The one thing that I didn't find particularly easy was concurrency. I still haven't managed to figure that out but that is more a comment on my limitations than the language. Nonetheless, I can certainly see Nim taking off for data science once it hits v1.0.

PMunch 8y ago

Not 100% sure what you mean by works, but Nim has been used to create various things. For one the entire Nim forum: https://forum.nim-lang.org/ https://forum.nim-lang.org/ is written in Nim (both back-end and front-end), the game "Reel Valley" has been written in Nim, there is a company doing Ethereum blockchain using Nim: https://status.im/ https://status.im/, and many more.

a012 8y ago
That's impressive. I'm curious whether I can use Nim in sysadmin job.
- kaushalmodi 8y ago
  I am dabbling in Nim, and plan to replace bash/Python scripts with Nim. So far it looks really promising! Few projects: nbuild[1], ntangle[2]. I wouldn't say that these are exemplary projects.. but they just show that Nim can replace bash/Python for command line utilities. [1]: https://github.com/kaushalmodi/nbuild/ https://github.com/kaushalmodi/nbuild/ [2]: https://github.com/kaushalmodi/ntangle/ https://github.com/kaushalmodi/ntangle/
- sigzero 8y ago
  I'd say "it depends". If I was a solo sysadmin or a small team, I would probably use it. Big teams are harder to get "buy in" for a new language.
- gtrs 8y ago
  Totally feasible, I ported Python code to Nim and it was super easy and I got a huge performance boost. If performance isn't a big deal, the other thing I've noticed is that compilation guarantees a much higher quality of code compared to interpretation. At least compared to Python, I have been hit by bad code which didn't get caught because there was no test for it. I've not faced that with Nim yet. No doubt you can still have issues but it's one less thing to worry about.
  - kungtotte 8y ago
    You also gain portability; no worrying about which Python version is installed on a target machine for example.
- nimmer 8y ago
  Nim competes very well with Python, Go and Rust in the sysadmin / system library / daemons space.