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Take a look at Nim if you haven't already - It has a Pythonesque syntax, but strong static typing with extensive user control of semantics you seem to care abo

Take a look at Nim if you haven't already - It has a Pythonesque syntax, but strong static typing with extensive user control of semantics you seem to care about; e.g. floats and ints do not convert automatically unless you explicitly "import lenientops"[0] ; You can define 'operational transform' optimizations (such as: c <- c+a\b converts to multiply_accumulate(c,a,b) - which is a big performance difference for e.g matrices) that will be applied by the compiler so that your code shows what you mean (c=c+ab), and yet the compiler gets to compile the efficient version (using the relevant BLAS routine) It's young, but has the best FFI for C,C++,Objective-C or JS you'll find anywhere on one hand, and already a good deal of native implementations, including e.g. a pure Nim BLAS that is comparable to within 5-10% with the best out there (including those with carefully hand optimized ASM kernels). [0] https://nim-lang.org/docs/lenientops.html https://nim-lang.org/docs/lenientops.html

elcritch 6y ago
I’d second that. I’ve been doing a bit of algorithm/NN stuff in Nim this year since it simplifies the “deployment” phase and it’s been surprisingly handy despite the limited libraries as there’s a C library for everything. It has a few rough edges but manageable. It has the spirit of Python 2 but written by a compiler geek (in the good sense). If I were to write an HFT it’d be tempting to use. The new default GC is reference counting but without using atomic ref counts. P.S. thanks for the lenientops tip
mhh__ 6y ago
I am involved with the foundation that runs the D programming language so I've found my home. Other than syntax obviously. FFI: Can nim use a C++ class and vtables? D does it all the time, nearly every language proclaims to have the best C++ interop but only D seems to be actually able to do it. Templates, classes, structs, and more all work. We also have Mir, which I haven't benchmarked for a while but was faster than OpenBLAS and Eugene a few years ago and was recently shown to be faster than numpy (the c bits) on the forum.
- beagle3 6y ago
  > FFI: Can nim use a C++ class and vtables? D does it all the time, nearly every language proclaims to have the best C++ interop but only D seems to be actually able to do it. Templates, classes, structs, and more all work. Well, it depends on how you define "best". Beyond an ABI, FFI is obviously a function of the implementation rather than the language per-se. The main Nim implementation can use C++ as a backend language, and when it does, it can use any C++ construct very easily by way of the .emit and .importcpp directives. For sure, classes, structs, exceptions all work, and IIRC templates do too (although you might need to instantiate a header yourself for each concrete type or something .... haven't done that myself). This implementation also means that it can use any C++17 or C++20 construct, including lambdas and friends. Does D's C++ interop support C++17? C++20? Can you guarantee it will support C++27? Nim's implementation already does, on every single platform you'll be able to use C++27 on (as long as C++27 can compile modern C++ code; there had been backward incompatible changes along the C++ history). You can't just #include a C or C++ header and call it a day; You need to have a Nim compatible definition for any symbol (variable, macro, function, class, ...). There are tools that help you and make it almost as easy as #include, such as nimterop[0] and and nimline[1], and "c2nim" which is included with the Nim compiler is enough to generate the Nim definitions from the .h definitions (though it can't do crazy metaprogramming; if D can do that, then D essentially includes a C++ compiler. Which is a fine way to get perfect C++ compatibility - Nim does that) But Nim can also do the same for JS when treating JS as a backend. And it can basically do the same for Python, with nimpy[2] and nimporter, generating a single executable that works with your installed Python DLL (2.7, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7) - which is something not even Python itself can do. There was a similar Lua bridge, but I think that one is no longer maintained. > We also have Mir, which I haven't benchmarked for a while but was faster than OpenBLAS and Eugene There's quite a bit of scientific stack built natively with Nim. It is far from self-sufficient, but the ease with which you can use a C library makes up for it. I haven't used it, but Laser[3] is on par with or exceeds OpenBLAS speedwise, and generalizes to e.g. int32 and int64 matrix multiplication; Arraymancer[4] does not heve all of numpy's functionality but does have quite a few nice bits from scikit-learn, supports CUDA and OpenCL, and you can use numpy through nimpy if all else fails. Also notable is NimTorch[5]. laser and arraymancer are mostly developed by mratsim, who occasionally hangs out here on HN. D is a fine language, I used it a little in the D1 days, and it was indeed a "better C++" but did not deliver enough value to be worth it for me, so I stopped. I know D2 is much better, but I've already found my better C++ (and better Python at the same time!) in Nim, so I haven't looked at it seriously. [0] https://github.com/nimterop/nimterop https://github.com/nimterop/nimterop [1] https://github.com/sinkingsugar/nimline https://github.com/sinkingsugar/nimline [2] https://github.com/yglukhov/nimpy https://github.com/yglukhov/nimpy [3] https://github.com/numforge/laser https://github.com/numforge/laser [4] https://github.com/mratsim/Arraymancer https://github.com/mratsim/Arraymancer [5] https://github.com/sinkingsugar/nimtorch https://github.com/sinkingsugar/nimtorch

elcritch 6y ago

I’d second that. I’ve been doing a bit of algorithm/NN stuff in Nim this year since it simplifies the “deployment” phase and it’s been surprisingly handy despite the limited libraries as there’s a C library for everything. It has a few rough edges but manageable. It has the spirit of Python 2 but written by a compiler geek (in the good sense). If I were to write an HFT it’d be tempting to use. The new default GC is reference counting but without using atomic ref counts. P.S. thanks for the lenientops tip

mhh__ 6y ago

I am involved with the foundation that runs the D programming language so I've found my home. Other than syntax obviously. FFI: Can nim use a C++ class and vtables? D does it all the time, nearly every language proclaims to have the best C++ interop but only D seems to be actually able to do it. Templates, classes, structs, and more all work. We also have Mir, which I haven't benchmarked for a while but was faster than OpenBLAS and Eugene a few years ago and was recently shown to be faster than numpy (the c bits) on the forum.

beagle3 6y ago
> FFI: Can nim use a C++ class and vtables? D does it all the time, nearly every language proclaims to have the best C++ interop but only D seems to be actually able to do it. Templates, classes, structs, and more all work. Well, it depends on how you define "best". Beyond an ABI, FFI is obviously a function of the implementation rather than the language per-se. The main Nim implementation can use C++ as a backend language, and when it does, it can use any C++ construct very easily by way of the .emit and .importcpp directives. For sure, classes, structs, exceptions all work, and IIRC templates do too (although you might need to instantiate a header yourself for each concrete type or something .... haven't done that myself). This implementation also means that it can use any C++17 or C++20 construct, including lambdas and friends. Does D's C++ interop support C++17? C++20? Can you guarantee it will support C++27? Nim's implementation already does, on every single platform you'll be able to use C++27 on (as long as C++27 can compile modern C++ code; there had been backward incompatible changes along the C++ history). You can't just #include a C or C++ header and call it a day; You need to have a Nim compatible definition for any symbol (variable, macro, function, class, ...). There are tools that help you and make it almost as easy as #include, such as nimterop[0] and and nimline[1], and "c2nim" which is included with the Nim compiler is enough to generate the Nim definitions from the .h definitions (though it can't do crazy metaprogramming; if D can do that, then D essentially includes a C++ compiler. Which is a fine way to get perfect C++ compatibility - Nim does that) But Nim can also do the same for JS when treating JS as a backend. And it can basically do the same for Python, with nimpy[2] and nimporter, generating a single executable that works with your installed Python DLL (2.7, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7) - which is something not even Python itself can do. There was a similar Lua bridge, but I think that one is no longer maintained. > We also have Mir, which I haven't benchmarked for a while but was faster than OpenBLAS and Eugene There's quite a bit of scientific stack built natively with Nim. It is far from self-sufficient, but the ease with which you can use a C library makes up for it. I haven't used it, but Laser[3] is on par with or exceeds OpenBLAS speedwise, and generalizes to e.g. int32 and int64 matrix multiplication; Arraymancer[4] does not heve all of numpy's functionality but does have quite a few nice bits from scikit-learn, supports CUDA and OpenCL, and you can use numpy through nimpy if all else fails. Also notable is NimTorch[5]. laser and arraymancer are mostly developed by mratsim, who occasionally hangs out here on HN. D is a fine language, I used it a little in the D1 days, and it was indeed a "better C++" but did not deliver enough value to be worth it for me, so I stopped. I know D2 is much better, but I've already found my better C++ (and better Python at the same time!) in Nim, so I haven't looked at it seriously. [0] https://github.com/nimterop/nimterop https://github.com/nimterop/nimterop [1] https://github.com/sinkingsugar/nimline https://github.com/sinkingsugar/nimline [2] https://github.com/yglukhov/nimpy https://github.com/yglukhov/nimpy [3] https://github.com/numforge/laser https://github.com/numforge/laser [4] https://github.com/mratsim/Arraymancer https://github.com/mratsim/Arraymancer [5] https://github.com/sinkingsugar/nimtorch https://github.com/sinkingsugar/nimtorch