4 ms·

Someone posted something on Nimrod a while back with something totally related [0], and I think it is interesting it keeps getting passed over. I am not a lang

by 616c 13y ago

Someone posted something on Nimrod a while back with something totally related [0], and I think it is interesting it keeps getting passed over. I am not a lang expert, but I have become very curious about the multiple alternatives in the systems programming niche, and others. It has been developed at least since 2008 (with 0.6 branch in 2008)[1] and the Go language's first public debut in 2009 (I do not know how stable it was at the time and I gave up after going through the first pages of the whole commit history to get a better answer).[2] At the very least, they were developed in the same time frame, are nominally similar languages, and addressing a lot of the same use cases as Rust I suppose. Yet, unfortunately few bench marks include them. I guess they will always be writing an indie language, but I wish more would check it out. As I continue to learn, maybe I can contribute code to his project. We will see if I ever get that far. [0] http://nimrod-code.org/ http://nimrod-code.org/ [1] http://nimrod-code.org/news.html http://nimrod-code.org/news.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_programming_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_programming_language

616c 13y ago
Well, well, a downvote? I guess struck a nerve by asking why alternative languages, the underlying interest of such a blog post, is upsetting. But I am not sure why given the context. I guess I will stop asking about the differences between Go and Nimrod.
- AlexanderDhoore 13y ago
  Don't be so oversensitive about the votes your comments get. The best thing you can do on HN is to post and leave for an hour. By then some interesting discussion might have popped up. Don't be bothered by the random downvoters. They are more afraid of you than you are of them.
  - 616c 13y ago
    It's not my first time here. I am well aware hot it works. When I comment I usually prod someone to give me a contrary opinion, and I learn something new from someone for more knowledgeable from me. That is why I keep coming back to HN. But I could have been more direct this time around, mea culpa.
  - vinceguidry 13y ago
    I imagine a lot of downvotes happen by accident. Whenever I get one, inevitably someone will upvote it just to get it out of the grey. It's an upvote I probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise, as it usually just stays at 1 point. My conclusion: don't sweat them.
- DanBC 13y ago
  I'm guessing the downvote is because your post has no connection to a business card ray-tracer. Has someone done one in Nimrod? Was it posted here? Because it feels like you're just shoehorning discussion of Nimrod into an unrelated conversation. One way of generating interest in Nimrod would be to convert the original C++ "business card ray tracer" to Nimrod and do some benchmarks - ease of writing, understanding, code size, speed of execution, etc.
kid0m4n 13y ago
A pull request is always welcome :)
gillianseed 13y ago
>and I think it is interesting it keeps getting passed over. If you think it's being passed over then you need to try and generate interest in the language, like posting articles about it you find, or if you find none, write one. Same goes for benchmarking, it's unlikely that people who aren't interested in the language will write benchmark-versions for that language so it's up to those who are interested in it to provide them. Which is what someone did in the Rogue Level Generation Benchmark where I recall Nimrod performed very well. http://togototo.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/benchmarks-round-two-parallel-go-rust-d-scala-and-nimrod/ http://togototo.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/benchmarks-round-tw... From my own very cursory glance I'm not quite sure why you would compare Nimrod directly to Go, I think it's more aptly compared to something like Rust, with both having optional garbage collector, generics, macros etc.
- pcwalton 13y ago
  > From my own very cursory glance I'm not quite sure why you would compare Nimrod directly to Go, I think it's more aptly compared to something like Rust, with both having optional garbage collector, generics, macros etc. (Disclaimer: I work on Rust and don't have a lot of experience with Nimrod other than reading the docs.) Nimrod and Rust are in a similar space, yes; they're both systems languages that use compiler backends designed for C (in Nimrod's case, by compiling to C; in Rust's case, through LLVM). I especially like Nimrod's nice Python-like syntax. Regarding "optional garbage collector", Nimrod and Rust are pretty different: last I looked, Nimrod follows the D route of tying safety to the GC, so if you don't use the GC you also lose memory safety. As far as I know, Rust is still unique among industry languages in that it takes the have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too approach of memory safety even if the GC is not used, via unique pointers and lifetimes.
  - Araq 13y ago
    (Disclaimer: I am the creator of Nimrod.) What you say is entirely correct; however Nimrod's effect system is not tied to any runtime mechanisms like a GC and provides lots of other aspects of safety. For instance you can ensure at compile time that a particular piece of code performs no database operations. Also the effect system will improve the safety for concurrent programming quite a lot; coming soon in some of the next versions. (Sorry, no papers about it yet.)
tingletech 13y ago
Nimrod seems rather unfortunately named. I'm not up on Abrahamic mythos so I didn't get the biblical reference -- to me Nimrod seems like a fighting words insult. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nimrod http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nimrod

by 616c 13y ago

616c 13y ago

Well, well, a downvote? I guess struck a nerve by asking why alternative languages, the underlying interest of such a blog post, is upsetting. But I am not sure why given the context. I guess I will stop asking about the differences between Go and Nimrod.

AlexanderDhoore 13y ago
Don't be so oversensitive about the votes your comments get. The best thing you can do on HN is to post and leave for an hour. By then some interesting discussion might have popped up. Don't be bothered by the random downvoters. They are more afraid of you than you are of them.
- 616c 13y ago
  It's not my first time here. I am well aware hot it works. When I comment I usually prod someone to give me a contrary opinion, and I learn something new from someone for more knowledgeable from me. That is why I keep coming back to HN. But I could have been more direct this time around, mea culpa.
- vinceguidry 13y ago
  I imagine a lot of downvotes happen by accident. Whenever I get one, inevitably someone will upvote it just to get it out of the grey. It's an upvote I probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise, as it usually just stays at 1 point. My conclusion: don't sweat them.
DanBC 13y ago
I'm guessing the downvote is because your post has no connection to a business card ray-tracer. Has someone done one in Nimrod? Was it posted here? Because it feels like you're just shoehorning discussion of Nimrod into an unrelated conversation. One way of generating interest in Nimrod would be to convert the original C++ "business card ray tracer" to Nimrod and do some benchmarks - ease of writing, understanding, code size, speed of execution, etc.

kid0m4n 13y ago

A pull request is always welcome :)

gillianseed 13y ago

>and I think it is interesting it keeps getting passed over. If you think it's being passed over then you need to try and generate interest in the language, like posting articles about it you find, or if you find none, write one. Same goes for benchmarking, it's unlikely that people who aren't interested in the language will write benchmark-versions for that language so it's up to those who are interested in it to provide them. Which is what someone did in the Rogue Level Generation Benchmark where I recall Nimrod performed very well. http://togototo.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/benchmarks-round-two-parallel-go-rust-d-scala-and-nimrod/ http://togototo.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/benchmarks-round-tw... From my own very cursory glance I'm not quite sure why you would compare Nimrod directly to Go, I think it's more aptly compared to something like Rust, with both having optional garbage collector, generics, macros etc.

pcwalton 13y ago
> From my own very cursory glance I'm not quite sure why you would compare Nimrod directly to Go, I think it's more aptly compared to something like Rust, with both having optional garbage collector, generics, macros etc. (Disclaimer: I work on Rust and don't have a lot of experience with Nimrod other than reading the docs.) Nimrod and Rust are in a similar space, yes; they're both systems languages that use compiler backends designed for C (in Nimrod's case, by compiling to C; in Rust's case, through LLVM). I especially like Nimrod's nice Python-like syntax. Regarding "optional garbage collector", Nimrod and Rust are pretty different: last I looked, Nimrod follows the D route of tying safety to the GC, so if you don't use the GC you also lose memory safety. As far as I know, Rust is still unique among industry languages in that it takes the have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too approach of memory safety even if the GC is not used, via unique pointers and lifetimes.
- Araq 13y ago
  (Disclaimer: I am the creator of Nimrod.) What you say is entirely correct; however Nimrod's effect system is not tied to any runtime mechanisms like a GC and provides lots of other aspects of safety. For instance you can ensure at compile time that a particular piece of code performs no database operations. Also the effect system will improve the safety for concurrent programming quite a lot; coming soon in some of the next versions. (Sorry, no papers about it yet.)

tingletech 13y ago

Nimrod seems rather unfortunately named. I'm not up on Abrahamic mythos so I didn't get the biblical reference -- to me Nimrod seems like a fighting words insult. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nimrod http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nimrod