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The main reasons I think, are that Nim is not "production ready" and that other developers think of Nim as Andreas Rumpf's baby. In my opinion, this happens wh

by wbhart 12y ago

The main reasons I think, are that Nim is not "production ready" and that other developers think of Nim as Andreas Rumpf's baby. In my opinion, this happens when a single author is responsible for most of the implementation of a language. Another example of this is the Crack language, which is still essentially controlled by one person, despite people declaring it "ready for writing useful code". Two things make non-commercially funded languages successful. Firstly, they have a team of core developers (even if that is just 3-4 people), who often disagree with one another. Secondly, ad hoc contributions, which don't quite fit with the original aims for the language, are encouraged so long as they don't revert important core design decisions. Julia and D are prime examples of successful languages along these lines. They both have more than one core developer, and they both have the feel of an ecosystem with many use cases, rather than a very focused language with strict design goals. Experts seem to agree that both Nim and Crack are very competent, interesting languages. So I believe they have a very bright future when the main developers are happy that the core language is just about right, and when the guiding principles are understood well enough that a core group of developers can continue that vision. Note that what I am saying has nothing to do with the main authors encouraging external contributions. In the case of both of the languages I mention, they both do that actively. And Nim certainly has other developers actively contributing. Followup: I want to explain why this is so important. As a developer looking to use Nim (or any other language for that matter), I want to know the language is production ready, so that my code won't break. And if I have issues that need resolving in Nim before my project works, I want to know that I am not waiting on one individual to fix them. I need to know there is a core group of identifiable people I can go to who can answer my queries, escalate my queries and ultimately resolve my issues. Of course these things are also important for the members of the Nim development community itself, not just users of the language.

k__ 12y ago
Design by committee is inferior (too many cooks). But most good maintainers I know listen to critique of the people who use their stuff. More devs are good for another reason than disagreeing, if one doesn't work on the code anymore, there are others who can.
- wbhart 12y ago
  I agree with you. One needs a group of like-minded individuals who understand and agree on the core design goals, but who have individual say in what they implement. Nim isn't being designed with an inferior model, it is being designed with an inefficient model. With three or four core devs, the work goes 3-4 times faster (slight exaggeration of course). That means a language can become popular in 5 years instead of 15. This is why companies love teams so much. One that works well together is worth many developers who work well alone.
  - dom96 12y ago
    While Andreas is still doing most of the core development it is not true that he is still the sole developer of Nim. I am personally involved with a lot of work on the standard library and there are two others who also work on the compiler. We all have a say in the design of Nim. In addition to that I have built a lot of software for Nim programmers in Nim like for example Nimble and the Nim forum.
    - wbhart 12y ago
      I was vaguely aware of this. But where are the major design decisions publicly discussed? If you look at the Julia issue tracker, you'll see an enormous amount of discussion between and with core devs about language design decisions. It's good to have someone primarily responsible for the compiler, someone responsible for libraries, another for GC, another for the package manager, etc. I'm not suggesting every core dev needs to be intimately involved with every line of code or design decision. It's more about how the development process feels to outsiders. After all, the question that was asked was about why Nim is not being hyped, rather than why is it not a fantastic language (it is fantastic). It is great to hear about two other (albeit nameless) individuals working on the compiler though.
      - gfasdgsfd 12y ago
        Most discussions about major things occur in IRC in #nim on freenode.
audunw 12y ago
While Nim has mostly been developed by Andreas, there seems to be about 3-4 people working on the compiler and standard library. I've contributed a bit myself, and I've found Andreas and the other developers very friendly to outside contributions. I am very optimisitic about the Nim community, it's still small but it is open and friendly, so I think all the potential for growth is there, especially now that the compiler itself is reaching maturity
audunw 12y ago
While Nim has mostly been developed by Andreas, there seems to be about 3-4 people working on the compiler and standard library. I've contributed a bit myself, and I've found Andreas and the other developers very friendly to outside contributions. I am very optimisitic about the Nim community, it's still small but it is open and friendly, so I think all the potential for growth is there, especially now that the compiler itself is reaching maturity
audunw 12y ago
While Nim has mostly been developed by Andreas, there seems to be about 3-4 people working on the compiler and standard library. I've contributed a bit myself, and I've found Andreas and the other developers very friendly to outside contributions. I am very optimisitic about the Nim community, it's still small but it is open and friendly, so I think all the potential for growth is there, especially now that the compiler itself is reaching maturity
ziotom78 12y ago
I think you hit the nail on the head. I've been following the Nim forum and the IRC channel for a while and, while I fully agree with dom96 about Rumpf not being the only developer, still find the difference with communities like Julia (which I closely follow as well) sometimes staggering. The hypothesis that the lack of success of Nim is due to its not being supported by some organisation like Google or Mozilla does not explain why Julia has many more contributors and its development proceedes at a much quicker pace. AFAIK there is no such organisation behind Julia's development. I've seen more than one time discussions on the Nim forum die of a sudden death after Araq just joined and said something against the idea being discussed. I've never seen something like in the Julia mailing list. Like wbhart, I think this happens mainly because there isn't just one core developer.
- dom96 12y ago
  From what I can see Julia has a lot of academic institutions behind it. Take a look at the contributors and you will see lots of mention of MIT and Harvard. I may be wrong but I am assuming that those institutions are sponsoring the development of Julia. Nim has no such support from anyone!
  - wbhart 12y ago
    I doubt academic institutions "sponsor" programming languages, other than paying the salary of some of the people who happen to be writing them. Where is Rumpf? MIT? http://web.mit.edu/nimrod-lang/arch/i386_linux26/doc/tutorial.html http://web.mit.edu/nimrod-lang/arch/i386_linux26/doc/tutoria...
    - dom96 12y ago
      I'd say that the academic institutions may be paying some of these people to develop Julia. As far as I know, Andreas Rumpf does not work for MIT or any academic institution if that's what you're implying. It is rather curious that the MIT website has a copy of Nim's documentation.
      - 12y ago

by wbhart 12y ago

k__ 12y ago

Design by committee is inferior (too many cooks). But most good maintainers I know listen to critique of the people who use their stuff. More devs are good for another reason than disagreeing, if one doesn't work on the code anymore, there are others who can.

wbhart 12y ago
I agree with you. One needs a group of like-minded individuals who understand and agree on the core design goals, but who have individual say in what they implement. Nim isn't being designed with an inferior model, it is being designed with an inefficient model. With three or four core devs, the work goes 3-4 times faster (slight exaggeration of course). That means a language can become popular in 5 years instead of 15. This is why companies love teams so much. One that works well together is worth many developers who work well alone.
- dom96 12y ago
  While Andreas is still doing most of the core development it is not true that he is still the sole developer of Nim. I am personally involved with a lot of work on the standard library and there are two others who also work on the compiler. We all have a say in the design of Nim. In addition to that I have built a lot of software for Nim programmers in Nim like for example Nimble and the Nim forum.
  - wbhart 12y ago
    I was vaguely aware of this. But where are the major design decisions publicly discussed? If you look at the Julia issue tracker, you'll see an enormous amount of discussion between and with core devs about language design decisions. It's good to have someone primarily responsible for the compiler, someone responsible for libraries, another for GC, another for the package manager, etc. I'm not suggesting every core dev needs to be intimately involved with every line of code or design decision. It's more about how the development process feels to outsiders. After all, the question that was asked was about why Nim is not being hyped, rather than why is it not a fantastic language (it is fantastic). It is great to hear about two other (albeit nameless) individuals working on the compiler though.
    - gfasdgsfd 12y ago
      Most discussions about major things occur in IRC in #nim on freenode.

audunw 12y ago

While Nim has mostly been developed by Andreas, there seems to be about 3-4 people working on the compiler and standard library. I've contributed a bit myself, and I've found Andreas and the other developers very friendly to outside contributions. I am very optimisitic about the Nim community, it's still small but it is open and friendly, so I think all the potential for growth is there, especially now that the compiler itself is reaching maturity

audunw 12y ago

ziotom78 12y ago

I think you hit the nail on the head. I've been following the Nim forum and the IRC channel for a while and, while I fully agree with dom96 about Rumpf not being the only developer, still find the difference with communities like Julia (which I closely follow as well) sometimes staggering. The hypothesis that the lack of success of Nim is due to its not being supported by some organisation like Google or Mozilla does not explain why Julia has many more contributors and its development proceedes at a much quicker pace. AFAIK there is no such organisation behind Julia's development. I've seen more than one time discussions on the Nim forum die of a sudden death after Araq just joined and said something against the idea being discussed. I've never seen something like in the Julia mailing list. Like wbhart, I think this happens mainly because there isn't just one core developer.

dom96 12y ago
From what I can see Julia has a lot of academic institutions behind it. Take a look at the contributors and you will see lots of mention of MIT and Harvard. I may be wrong but I am assuming that those institutions are sponsoring the development of Julia. Nim has no such support from anyone!
- wbhart 12y ago
  I doubt academic institutions "sponsor" programming languages, other than paying the salary of some of the people who happen to be writing them. Where is Rumpf? MIT? http://web.mit.edu/nimrod-lang/arch/i386_linux26/doc/tutorial.html http://web.mit.edu/nimrod-lang/arch/i386_linux26/doc/tutoria...
  - dom96 12y ago
    I'd say that the academic institutions may be paying some of these people to develop Julia. As far as I know, Andreas Rumpf does not work for MIT or any academic institution if that's what you're implying. It is rather curious that the MIT website has a copy of Nim's documentation.
    - 12y ago