What a low effort article. I have done some programming in Nim. It’s a nice language but I felt frustrated whenever I wanted to do something I knew I could do in python but that didn’t work in Nim. I just missed some of the syntactic sugar of python, that being said I would love to get back into Nim again.
rich_sasha · 1h ago
I often wonder why some languages succeed while others falter. Why did Rust break through, for example, while so many other excellent languages didn't.
I guess a lot of languages are kind of fungible. If you want a fast, cross platform, GC-based OOP language, the truth is, there are many choices. I'm not saying they are the same, but for 80% of the use cases they kind of are, and there are always good reasons to use established languages rather than new ones.
The ones that make it offer something very unique, not merely better than peers. So Rust, as a memory-safer non-GC language has a clear use case with little or no competition.
Nim doesn't have this luxury. I wish it well, I like the language and often contemplated learning it properly. But I fear the odds are against it.
elcritch · 41m ago
The notion that we need to all program in the top 10 popular programming languages seems dead with the advent of LLMs.
I program a lot in Nim including professionally and strongly prefer it over Rust or even Zig.
Primarily because I just really enjoy programming in Nim and getting things done I wouldn’t have otherwise or be capable of doing.
For example recently I needed to automate a GUI app. I tried the Python libraries but found they kinda sucked. Despite pulling in opencv they were slow at finding buttons in a screenshot. Then the one I tried also broke on hidpi displays.
Instead I got Claude to write me up a Nim library to find images in a screenshot. Then had Claude add SIMD to it.
It’s far faster than the python libraries, supports hidpi, and is far easier to install and use. I still use a small Python app as a server to take the screenshots but it’s a nice balance.
> I guess a lot of languages are kind of fungible. If you want a fast, cross platform, GC-based OOP language, the truth is, there are many choices.
It’s true, in many cases they are fungible. Though much less so for languages which compile to native code. LLMs do lower the barrier to switching.
Nim isn’t really a GC’ed OOP language though it supports some bits of that.
It’s really a systems language that can also run anywhere from an embedded device to a web server and as a JavaScript app.
The new default memory management is based on reference counting with or without a cycle collector. So it’s great for latency sensitive settings.
SkiFire13 · 31m ago
> Nim isn’t really a GC’ed OOP language though it supports some bits of that.
I'm not sure about the OOP part, but last time I checked the standard library assumed the GC was enabled, so on that side I believe it's much closer to those languages than to C/C++/Rust/Zig
elcritch · 16m ago
It’s more that Nim2 moved from a GC to ARC/ORC, scope based automatic reference counting (ARC) with an optional cycle collector (ORC).
C++, Swift, and even Rust rely on reference counting quite a bit.
SkiFire13 · 4m ago
As long as it's effectively required by default I would place it in a category more similar to GCed languages than system languages like C++ and Rust.
bobajeff · 1h ago
I vaguely remember a talk given by the creator of ELM called "The Economics of Programming Languages". It's actually really expensive to make a good programming language that's widely used.
Forget about syntax or semantics or unique features or whatever. Having money and resources are the most important factor for a successful language.
zahlman · 47m ago
Where does the money get spent? Just developer salaries and marketing?
colejohnson66 · 43m ago
Yes. Writing a language in your free time means juggling work on the side. Or you can be at Google and get paid to write Go for your job, and get free marketing from it. Even Rust had the backing of Mozilla. Until your "pet" language reaches critical mass that you can sustain yourself and quit your day job, you're fighting the giants.
hardwaresofton · 1h ago
I really feel for new languages that have to compete with Rust.
It’s probably easier than it’s ever been to create a high quality new language but to get as good as Rust has become just takes so much time and collective effort that it can be out of reach for most ecosystems/groups of builders. Getting the language features just right (and including novel stuff) is just the beginning.
Remember when Rust and Go were comparable? Feels like forever ago when they both just looked like “new systems programming languages” a we know how that turned out.
For example Zig is probably the most impressive new language, and it’s got a ton of awesome stuff but the chance that I’m going to adopt it over a language with often comparable performance that is ALSO much safer? Rounds to zero.
Maybe some day I’ll have the brain cells and skill to write code in zig and be confident I’m Not introducing a whole class of gnarly bugs, but it seems like I should just focus my limited brain power on writing high quality Rust code.
baq · 43m ago
> Remember when Rust and Go were comparable?
They were never intended for the same niches. Go is a Java/Python replacement. Rust is more of a C/subset of C++ replacement. They were compared mostly because they had usable versions released at approximately the same time, but you (correctly) don’t see those comparisons anymore.
akkad33 · 1h ago
> Maybe some day I’ll have the brain cells and skill to write code in zig and be confident I’m Not introducing a whole class of gnarly bugs, but it seems like I should just focus my limited brain power on writing high
Llms solve this problem
MeetingsBrowser · 1h ago
> be confident I’m Not introducing a whole class of gnarly bugs
I think LLMs are doing the exact opposite
Tiberium · 1h ago
I use LLMs almost daily, and they certainly don't "solve" the problem of finding bugs, not even in popular languages like TypeScript. They do help a lot, yes, but they haven't solved it completely.
sroerick · 46m ago
Have you tried using an LLM with Zig? When the training sets are on different language versions and there are breaking changes you may find it challenging.
I actually enjoyed zig because it prevented me from using LLMs to code in this way
lionkor · 52m ago
If you think LLMs solve this problem, you should reevaluate your experience level and seniority.
hk__2 · 52m ago
Using LLMs on a language you don’t already master is a sure way to introduce a lot of bugs.
xigoi · 1h ago
> I often wonder why some languages succeed while others falter.
$$$money$$$
hk__2 · 51m ago
> $$$money$$$
Rust (backed by a foundation) won over Go (backed by Google). Oh, and remember Dart (backed by Google)?
OoooooooO · 48m ago
Rust can do everything Go does but Go can't do the same as Rust can.
xigoi · 46m ago
In what sense did Rust “win over” Go? And since Google loves to kill its side projects fast, no wonder Dart failed.
miggy · 46m ago
A strong tooling ecosystem needs money, which usually means corporate sponsorship.
rubymamis · 1h ago
Mojo is similar to Rust in that case, isn't it?
SkiFire13 · 26m ago
My understanding is that Mojo has yet to prove itself in this space. They made a lot of claims but at the time few of them were implemented.
treeform · 36m ago
I feel like Nim made me fall in love with programming again.
Nim fixes many of the issues I had with Python. First, I can now make games with Nim because it’s super fast and easily interfaces with all of the high performance OS and graphics APIs. Second, typos no longer crash in production because the compiler checks everything. If it complies it runs. Finally, refactors are easy, because the compiler practically guides you through them. The cross compiling story is great you can compile to JS on the front end. You can use pytorch and numpy from Nim. You can write CUDA kernels in Nim. It can do everything.
That’s very interesting actually. Can you call only specially wrapped libraries from Nim, or is any Python library importable? When you cross-compile to JS can you only use pure-Nim libraries or how does that work?
Tiberium · 22m ago
It's not a built-in Nim feature, and it'll only work with native backends (C/C++/ObjC). The project that makes it possible is https://github.com/yglukhov/nimpy
gyulai · 1h ago
So, there I was in 2016. It had been 13 years since I had last entertained the desire to learn a new programming language (I had landed on Python, back then). The serious contenders were Go, Nim, and Rust. I landed on Nim back then, thinking to myself: Man, this language really has a future. I did my next side project in Nim, and loved it like I've loved no other language over the course of my (as of now, in 2025) 28 years of programming. But no actual job ever materialized to make me into a professional Nim programmer that would actually pay the bills. I stuck it out with Python, with growing discontentment. I took a Perl job in 2018, which lasted until 2022, which I never should have taken in the first place. I was relatively free in my choice of language from that point forward, and decided to switch from Python to Lua after a short period of disorientation where I kind of liked Haxe. Right now, I'm learning Rust, crying tears over that future for Nim that never materialized.
mathverse · 1h ago
Nim is a programming language for an expert programmer. The ecosystem is very small and for everything a little bit more specialized you need to make a library yourself.
raffraffraff · 1h ago
This. I really wanted to like Nim. I tried to learn it, but having never been a programmer before (but years of Linux admin, puppet, terraform and scripting) I found it extremely tough, and a lot of documentation is out of date and the there aren't many good examples to follow. Switched to Go and have built lots and lots of stuff in go.
ZoomZoomZoom · 44m ago
> a lot of documentation is out of date
Please, file bugs or complain on the official matrix room. The community tries its best to keep up the official documentation in sync with the changes.
When there's a vacuum like that, that is also an opportunity for folks to make a significant impact.
Compare to other communities where you need to stand out from the noise.
hk__2 · 45m ago
This usually ends up in a situation where most of the significant libraries for the language are abandoned GitHub repos with 13 stars and no documentation ("You just have to read the code!!1!").
DarkNova6 · 1h ago
Sounds more like "Expert Hobbyist" than "Expert Programmer".
Imustaskforhelp · 1h ago
Exactly, I had tried nim but I felt the same issue.
I mean, personally I really like golang. Its actually gotten an ecosystem that functions while being able to cross compile and actually being easy enough to learn unlike rust.
I also sometimes exclusively just use typescript/python just for their ecosystem as a junior programmer. For me ecosystem matters a lot and this was a reason why I wish that more languages can create more libraries which can work.
Like the article pointed, nim is really solid language. But I'd like to see more libraries being made for it.
Gud · 13m ago
What I’m curious for is something akin to a language abstraction layer.
So you can easily combine codebases written in different languages. I guess something like wasm and llvm.
jarredkenny · 1h ago
I fell in love with Nim a couple of years ago, but feel like Zig gaining popularity has really pushed Nim out of the limelight in terms of developer adoption.
Zambyte · 1h ago
Nim has been on my radar for a while, but I've never really dug into it. I have actually written some small projects in Zig though. Are there things you think Nim does better than Zig?
Tiberium · 1h ago
I think Nim and Zig target very different audiences and have very different goals. Nim is about being a big, powerful language with lots of features, so that you have the freedom to use it the way you want, e.g. there is OOP with methods, but it's completely optional. Zig is explicitly against that, even on the homepage you can see: "No hidden control flow. No hidden memory allocations. No preprocessor, no macros.". While memory management in Nim by default is completely automatic, and templates/macros are quite common.
It makes much more sense to compare Nim to, say, Swift, D, or other modern compiled languages with lots of syntax sugar.
anta40 · 56m ago
You may consider Nim as a sort of "compiled Python" with some Pascal influences.
https://nimble.directory/
I'd pick Nim if my concern is general app development, not specifically system programming.
mrbluecoat · 1h ago
From a promotional marketing perspective, that webpage misses quite a few basics, like linking to the Nim site [0] and explaining what it actually does:
Nim is a statically typed programming language that compiles to native dependency-free executables in C, C++ or JavaScript.
Go is good, but sometimes you need higher performance, which is when one of Rust/Zig/Nim must enter the picture.
quotemstr · 1h ago
You mean the language also known as NIM, n_iM, and NI_m?
Tiberium · 1h ago
The first character is actually not considered for case insensitivity, although it was in the past. :) And case insensitivity itself comes to Nim from Pascal.
xigoi · 52m ago
By this logic, C++ is the same as C, C# is a syntax error and PHP should be named $PHP :D
simonask · 1h ago
“Has safety features in place”? I’m sorry, not gonna cut it.
I mean, Nim looks cool, but I’m not sure what it does that is substantially new. Niceties are generally not enough to foster adoption - something real has to be on the table that meaningfully opens up new avenues, unlocks new paths, enables new use cases.
I have the same criticism of Zig.
archargelod · 1h ago
Nim has one of the most powerful metaprogramming systems out there.
Hygienic templates, easy macros, but my favorite is the compile-time functions.
Nim compiler has an embedded VM, so any Nim code (that doesn't rely on FFI) can run at compile time.
lionkor · 49m ago
More powerful than zig's comptime?
Tiberium · 46m ago
Yes, compile-time execution in Nim is very natural, if you mark a variable "const" or use some other ways, you can run almost all pure-Nim code at compile-time without having to modify it.
xigoi · 50m ago
For me, the killer feature of Nim is that I can just write code without having to constantly fight the language.
efilife · 1h ago
Significant whitespace is a dealbreaker for me. I never tried Nim for this reason
vips7L · 28m ago
It’s subjective, but this is also why I haven’t tried Nim or Crystal. If you like brackets, I’d say try Swift if you want to stay in the natively compiled + GC space.
archargelod · 54m ago
I hated significant whitespace when I tried Python first time. Years later I found Nim and indentation didn't bother me as much.
Maybe we both just got bad first expression with most popular, but unfortunately not a good language? =)
zahlman · 20m ago
I've really never understood where this aesthetic preference comes from.
Back when most of my code was in C or C++ (or Java), I was told all the time, sure you can omit these braces for a single-statement block, but you shouldn't, you'll regret it later. You can leave all the code unindented or irregularly indented, it won't matter to the compiler, but you'll appreciate lining it up in the long run. And all that advice was correct; I was better off in the long run, and I saw others come to regret it all the time. But then, over time, I started to wonder why I had to scan past all these diagonal lines of close braces as I read the code. And I cursed that these languages made it too difficult to pull out the inner parts into separate functions, disentangle setup and teardown from the main loop etc. But I also cursed that after putting in the effort (even if was just "using a proper text editor") to make things line up beautifully and in agreement with the logical structure, I still had to take up vertical space with these redundant markers of the logical structure.
Python was my first language using significant whitespace, and it was a breath of fresh air. That was a bit over 20 years ago, I think. I've learned several other programming languages since then, but I never "looked back" in any meaningful way.
froobius · 42m ago
On the other hand, I hate languages that are polluted with ugly bracket noise, so Nim is appealing to me for this reason
Hello, Python Critic from the 1990's. Welcome to the future
codr7 · 36m ago
Hello fellow programmer from the middle ages; we discovered long ago that significant whitespace is a dead end, the fact that it's popular with the wannabes changes nothing.
I guess a lot of languages are kind of fungible. If you want a fast, cross platform, GC-based OOP language, the truth is, there are many choices. I'm not saying they are the same, but for 80% of the use cases they kind of are, and there are always good reasons to use established languages rather than new ones.
The ones that make it offer something very unique, not merely better than peers. So Rust, as a memory-safer non-GC language has a clear use case with little or no competition.
Nim doesn't have this luxury. I wish it well, I like the language and often contemplated learning it properly. But I fear the odds are against it.
I program a lot in Nim including professionally and strongly prefer it over Rust or even Zig.
Primarily because I just really enjoy programming in Nim and getting things done I wouldn’t have otherwise or be capable of doing.
For example recently I needed to automate a GUI app. I tried the Python libraries but found they kinda sucked. Despite pulling in opencv they were slow at finding buttons in a screenshot. Then the one I tried also broke on hidpi displays.
Instead I got Claude to write me up a Nim library to find images in a screenshot. Then had Claude add SIMD to it.
It’s far faster than the python libraries, supports hidpi, and is far easier to install and use. I still use a small Python app as a server to take the screenshots but it’s a nice balance.
> I guess a lot of languages are kind of fungible. If you want a fast, cross platform, GC-based OOP language, the truth is, there are many choices.
It’s true, in many cases they are fungible. Though much less so for languages which compile to native code. LLMs do lower the barrier to switching.
Nim isn’t really a GC’ed OOP language though it supports some bits of that.
It’s really a systems language that can also run anywhere from an embedded device to a web server and as a JavaScript app.
The new default memory management is based on reference counting with or without a cycle collector. So it’s great for latency sensitive settings.
I'm not sure about the OOP part, but last time I checked the standard library assumed the GC was enabled, so on that side I believe it's much closer to those languages than to C/C++/Rust/Zig
C++, Swift, and even Rust rely on reference counting quite a bit.
Forget about syntax or semantics or unique features or whatever. Having money and resources are the most important factor for a successful language.
It’s probably easier than it’s ever been to create a high quality new language but to get as good as Rust has become just takes so much time and collective effort that it can be out of reach for most ecosystems/groups of builders. Getting the language features just right (and including novel stuff) is just the beginning.
Remember when Rust and Go were comparable? Feels like forever ago when they both just looked like “new systems programming languages” a we know how that turned out.
For example Zig is probably the most impressive new language, and it’s got a ton of awesome stuff but the chance that I’m going to adopt it over a language with often comparable performance that is ALSO much safer? Rounds to zero.
Maybe some day I’ll have the brain cells and skill to write code in zig and be confident I’m Not introducing a whole class of gnarly bugs, but it seems like I should just focus my limited brain power on writing high quality Rust code.
They were never intended for the same niches. Go is a Java/Python replacement. Rust is more of a C/subset of C++ replacement. They were compared mostly because they had usable versions released at approximately the same time, but you (correctly) don’t see those comparisons anymore.
Llms solve this problem
I think LLMs are doing the exact opposite
I actually enjoyed zig because it prevented me from using LLMs to code in this way
$$$money$$$
Rust (backed by a foundation) won over Go (backed by Google). Oh, and remember Dart (backed by Google)?
Nim fixes many of the issues I had with Python. First, I can now make games with Nim because it’s super fast and easily interfaces with all of the high performance OS and graphics APIs. Second, typos no longer crash in production because the compiler checks everything. If it complies it runs. Finally, refactors are easy, because the compiler practically guides you through them. The cross compiling story is great you can compile to JS on the front end. You can use pytorch and numpy from Nim. You can write CUDA kernels in Nim. It can do everything.
See: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditEng/comments/yvbt4h/why_i_enj...
Please, file bugs or complain on the official matrix room. The community tries its best to keep up the official documentation in sync with the changes.
https://matrix.to/#/#nim-lang:matrix.org
Compare to other communities where you need to stand out from the noise.
I mean, personally I really like golang. Its actually gotten an ecosystem that functions while being able to cross compile and actually being easy enough to learn unlike rust.
I also sometimes exclusively just use typescript/python just for their ecosystem as a junior programmer. For me ecosystem matters a lot and this was a reason why I wish that more languages can create more libraries which can work.
Like the article pointed, nim is really solid language. But I'd like to see more libraries being made for it.
So you can easily combine codebases written in different languages. I guess something like wasm and llvm.
It makes much more sense to compare Nim to, say, Swift, D, or other modern compiled languages with lots of syntax sugar.
https://nimble.directory/ I'd pick Nim if my concern is general app development, not specifically system programming.
Nim is a statically typed programming language that compiles to native dependency-free executables in C, C++ or JavaScript.
[0] https://nim-lang.org/
I mean, Nim looks cool, but I’m not sure what it does that is substantially new. Niceties are generally not enough to foster adoption - something real has to be on the table that meaningfully opens up new avenues, unlocks new paths, enables new use cases.
I have the same criticism of Zig.
Nim compiler has an embedded VM, so any Nim code (that doesn't rely on FFI) can run at compile time.
Maybe we both just got bad first expression with most popular, but unfortunately not a good language? =)
Back when most of my code was in C or C++ (or Java), I was told all the time, sure you can omit these braces for a single-statement block, but you shouldn't, you'll regret it later. You can leave all the code unindented or irregularly indented, it won't matter to the compiler, but you'll appreciate lining it up in the long run. And all that advice was correct; I was better off in the long run, and I saw others come to regret it all the time. But then, over time, I started to wonder why I had to scan past all these diagonal lines of close braces as I read the code. And I cursed that these languages made it too difficult to pull out the inner parts into separate functions, disentangle setup and teardown from the main loop etc. But I also cursed that after putting in the effort (even if was just "using a proper text editor") to make things line up beautifully and in agreement with the logical structure, I still had to take up vertical space with these redundant markers of the logical structure.
Python was my first language using significant whitespace, and it was a breath of fresh air. That was a bit over 20 years ago, I think. I've learned several other programming languages since then, but I never "looked back" in any meaningful way.
https://github.com/xigoi/nimdenter