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This. I'm on the lookout for expressive, statically typed, native code compiling languages for game development. Currently poking around with Rust, since Go see

This. I'm on the lookout for expressive, statically typed, native code compiling languages for game development. Currently poking around with Rust, since Go seems to pretty much be settled on not doing the custom expressibility thing. Nimrod looks like something I'd really want to like, the game stuff I do doesn't really need Rust's hardcore garbage collection avoidance, but the ecosystem sparsity just scares me off. Meanwhile, Rust has both reasonably heavy institutional support and an impressive swarm of adventurous game developers with a C++ background working on stuff for it. I'm banking on Rust mostly for the potential ecosystem strength in being the only alternative to C++ for a high level of abstraction don't pay for what you don't use language.

def- 12y ago
The standard library is pretty nice though: http://nimrod-lang.org/lib.html http://nimrod-lang.org/lib.html I spent a few days solving Rosetta Code tasks and was surprised how easy most were using the existing libraries: http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Category:Nimrod http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Category:Nimrod
- dom96 12y ago
  We also already have a pretty functional package manager (https://github.com/nimrod-code/babel https://github.com/nimrod-code/babel) and many packages already make use of it: http://nimrod-lang.org/lib.html#babel http://nimrod-lang.org/lib.html#babel
  - fineline 12y ago
    I see the Babel doco has now been changed (10 hrs ago - any relation to this HN post?) to say I can run Babel against Nimrod 0.9.4 stable instead of needing to build Nimrod from source. This is great news, I was put off by the language's package manager not working against the stable release version. I look forward to giving this a try.
    - girvo 12y ago
      I will say building Nimrod from source is quite literally the easiest language that I've compiled before, aside from Node.js! Super easy :)
    - dom96 12y ago
      It's great news indeed. It seems I underestimated how many people will be having trouble building babel due to this. Next time I will do my best to make sure that it works with the latest Nimrod release.
tdees40 12y ago
There really are only three ways to create a usable language, honestly: 1) Huge institutional support. See: C#, Java, Go. 2) Give it 20 years. See: Python, Haskell. 3) Weird, idiosyncratic factors. See: Javascript, mostly. So it's hard for me to get excited about these sorts of things. Edit: fair point, Javascript is really a case of #1, with Netscape as the institution.
- zabcik 12y ago
  I think it's only the first two. Javascript happened because of Netscape (1).
- skrebbel 12y ago
  You're missing 4) piggybacking on existing ecosystems. E.g. Scala, Clojure, F#.
  - def- 12y ago
    In Nimrod it's easy to piggyback on C, which has the most extensive ecosystem of all languages.
    - sanderjd 12y ago
      But C's ecosystem is so extensive that everybody can piggyback on it (with varying levels of ceremony).
      - tdees40 12y ago
        See CPython, Haskell, C++....
    - sitkack 12y ago
      This might already exist, but if Nimrod could piggy back on Javascript (Node), Python and Ruby for libraries this would be huge. Native glue.
      - 12y ago
stewbrew 12y ago
It you're in game development, you might want to take a look at haxe. It seems many users use it successfully for games.
runT1ME 12y ago
OCaml?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

def- 12y ago

The standard library is pretty nice though: http://nimrod-lang.org/lib.html http://nimrod-lang.org/lib.html I spent a few days solving Rosetta Code tasks and was surprised how easy most were using the existing libraries: http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Category:Nimrod http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Category:Nimrod

dom96 12y ago
We also already have a pretty functional package manager (https://github.com/nimrod-code/babel https://github.com/nimrod-code/babel) and many packages already make use of it: http://nimrod-lang.org/lib.html#babel http://nimrod-lang.org/lib.html#babel
- fineline 12y ago
  I see the Babel doco has now been changed (10 hrs ago - any relation to this HN post?) to say I can run Babel against Nimrod 0.9.4 stable instead of needing to build Nimrod from source. This is great news, I was put off by the language's package manager not working against the stable release version. I look forward to giving this a try.
  - girvo 12y ago
    I will say building Nimrod from source is quite literally the easiest language that I've compiled before, aside from Node.js! Super easy :)
  - dom96 12y ago
    It's great news indeed. It seems I underestimated how many people will be having trouble building babel due to this. Next time I will do my best to make sure that it works with the latest Nimrod release.

tdees40 12y ago

There really are only three ways to create a usable language, honestly: 1) Huge institutional support. See: C#, Java, Go. 2) Give it 20 years. See: Python, Haskell. 3) Weird, idiosyncratic factors. See: Javascript, mostly. So it's hard for me to get excited about these sorts of things. Edit: fair point, Javascript is really a case of #1, with Netscape as the institution.

zabcik 12y ago
I think it's only the first two. Javascript happened because of Netscape (1).
skrebbel 12y ago
You're missing 4) piggybacking on existing ecosystems. E.g. Scala, Clojure, F#.
- def- 12y ago
  In Nimrod it's easy to piggyback on C, which has the most extensive ecosystem of all languages.
  - sanderjd 12y ago
    But C's ecosystem is so extensive that everybody can piggyback on it (with varying levels of ceremony).
    - tdees40 12y ago
      See CPython, Haskell, C++....
  - sitkack 12y ago
    This might already exist, but if Nimrod could piggy back on Javascript (Node), Python and Ruby for libraries this would be huge. Native glue.
    - 12y ago

stewbrew 12y ago

It you're in game development, you might want to take a look at haxe. It seems many users use it successfully for games.

runT1ME 12y ago

OCaml?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]