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Sidebar: I’m excited to see Nim get LLVM support via nlvm. I haven’t read this document yet but I just remembered that Nim is an advancing language and checked

Sidebar: I’m excited to see Nim get LLVM support via nlvm. I haven’t read this document yet but I just remembered that Nim is an advancing language and checked GitHub for new developments. It seems to be that Crystal has made some leaps and bounds in picking up some of the Ruby slack, though I see Nim lagging behind of taking up some Python users. I’d feel 100000x more comfortable as a potential user if they had a little more corporate support and some mainstream use cases. I think I’ll take this post as the wake up call to take Nim more seriously in my own hobby programming. I’ve had my eye on it since they changed the name and I discovered it; but I didn’t realize until today people were building such thorough resources.

michaelsbradley 5y ago
Lots of exciting work also being done in libs, e.g. chronos[1] (just one example), which is an alternative to std/asyncdispatch[2]. [1] https://forum.nim-lang.org/t/8950 https://forum.nim-lang.org/t/8950 [&] https://github.com/status-im/nim-chronos#readme https://github.com/status-im/nim-chronos#readme [2] https://nim-lang.org/docs/asyncdispatch.html https://nim-lang.org/docs/asyncdispatch.html
mathverse 5y ago
Yeah they need at least one more big corporate sponsor besides Status.
- michaelsbradley 5y ago
  "One more" because, in your view, it's important to have 2+ or it's problematic to have Status as a/your-only sponsor? Just curious.
  - _dain_ 5y ago
    The only big sponsor being a cryptocoin startup doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.
    - michaelsbradley 5y ago
      On technical merits or.......? We use Nim to prototype many things (though not all things), and in many cases they go into production with `-d:release` just fine: https://github.com/orgs/status-im/repositories https://github.com/orgs/status-im/repositories A good example is nimbus-eth2, which is one of the (The?) most energy-efficient Beacon Chain clients, with real money at stake: https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2#readme https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2#readme
      - adenozine 5y ago
        Whether or not you agree with the many people who think cryptocurrency is the biggest grifting scam to ever grace the internet or not, the bottom line is that as long as they think that and as long as Status is the sole corporate interest behind Nim, then it faces real and several difficulty in picking up steam. The reality is that most people are not going to use cryptocurrency anytime in the next 10 years. Landlords won't take it, grocery stores won't take it, the whole thing is a mind-boggling waste of time and energy. Even still, while the tech Status is producing might be cool, surely you can't be so naive as to overlook the obvious tinge it places on other potential Nim adopters. I'm a crotchedy 50+ yo fart, so pay me no mind if what I say bothers you.
        michaelsbradley 5y ago
        I'm a 45+ yo fart, and all my learning, experiences, and talents have in many recent years been and are being poured wholeheartedly into blockchain/crypto-related tech (which is all Open Source software), no regrets on my part whatsoever. you can't be so naive as to overlook the obvious tinge it places on other potential Nim adopters I've done a lot of soul-searching on this front, and I can't even conceive of a "tinge" on rational potential Nim adopters.
        dzamo_norton 5y ago
        41 yo fart. Rational at times. The tinge, in general, comes from the huge number of crypto projects that are indistinguishable from Ponzis, vehicles for what would be a financial crime if done with regulated instruments, or just the counterproductive inclusion of a blockchain. Nim itself never felt tinged to me back when I tried (and enjoyed) it. But I generally won't touch anything "crypto".
nimmer 5y ago
Nim uses GCC and works very well. Nim is among the fastest languages both in runtime and compilation time also thanks to GCC. GCC supports way more architectures than LLVM.

michaelsbradley 5y ago

Lots of exciting work also being done in libs, e.g. chronos[1] (just one example), which is an alternative to std/asyncdispatch[2]. [1] https://forum.nim-lang.org/t/8950 https://forum.nim-lang.org/t/8950 [&] https://github.com/status-im/nim-chronos#readme https://github.com/status-im/nim-chronos#readme [2] https://nim-lang.org/docs/asyncdispatch.html https://nim-lang.org/docs/asyncdispatch.html

mathverse 5y ago

Yeah they need at least one more big corporate sponsor besides Status.

michaelsbradley 5y ago
"One more" because, in your view, it's important to have 2+ or it's problematic to have Status as a/your-only sponsor? Just curious.
- _dain_ 5y ago
  The only big sponsor being a cryptocoin startup doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.
  - michaelsbradley 5y ago
    On technical merits or.......? We use Nim to prototype many things (though not all things), and in many cases they go into production with `-d:release` just fine: https://github.com/orgs/status-im/repositories https://github.com/orgs/status-im/repositories A good example is nimbus-eth2, which is one of the (The?) most energy-efficient Beacon Chain clients, with real money at stake: https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2#readme https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2#readme
    - adenozine 5y ago
      Whether or not you agree with the many people who think cryptocurrency is the biggest grifting scam to ever grace the internet or not, the bottom line is that as long as they think that and as long as Status is the sole corporate interest behind Nim, then it faces real and several difficulty in picking up steam. The reality is that most people are not going to use cryptocurrency anytime in the next 10 years. Landlords won't take it, grocery stores won't take it, the whole thing is a mind-boggling waste of time and energy. Even still, while the tech Status is producing might be cool, surely you can't be so naive as to overlook the obvious tinge it places on other potential Nim adopters. I'm a crotchedy 50+ yo fart, so pay me no mind if what I say bothers you.
      - michaelsbradley 5y ago
        I'm a 45+ yo fart, and all my learning, experiences, and talents have in many recent years been and are being poured wholeheartedly into blockchain/crypto-related tech (which is all Open Source software), no regrets on my part whatsoever. you can't be so naive as to overlook the obvious tinge it places on other potential Nim adopters I've done a lot of soul-searching on this front, and I can't even conceive of a "tinge" on rational potential Nim adopters.
        dzamo_norton 5y ago
        41 yo fart. Rational at times. The tinge, in general, comes from the huge number of crypto projects that are indistinguishable from Ponzis, vehicles for what would be a financial crime if done with regulated instruments, or just the counterproductive inclusion of a blockchain. Nim itself never felt tinged to me back when I tried (and enjoyed) it. But I generally won't touch anything "crypto".

nimmer 5y ago

Nim uses GCC and works very well. Nim is among the fastest languages both in runtime and compilation time also thanks to GCC. GCC supports way more architectures than LLVM.