Nim Programming Language Overview Comparing with Rust and Python

Nim is a programming language that is efficient with elegant syntax. It's comparable to Rust with its built-in safety mechanisms which ensure reliability for high scale operations and concurrency and memory safety, while performing at the same level as C. Nim is less syntax-heavy compared to Rust, borrowing its inspiration from programming languages like Python.

The best part about Nim is that it's both statically typed and compiled, allowing the compiler to simplify the user's inputs. For example, defining an object type like a person with elements like name and age is straightforward and easy. The Nim programming language has built-in efficiencies and provides a great developer experience.

Similar to Rust and C, it provides high performance and compiles down to C, offering native, dependency-free executables that are small and portable. When we compile Rust, we get sizable binaries but with Nim we get file sizes that are tiny in comparison. It also takes care of building cross-platform binaries for Windows, Linux, BSD, and MacOS so you don't have to worry about kernel APIs of those platforms.

Nim also offers better memory management, preventing issues like race conditions and leaks. It uses inspirations from C++ and Rust to provide better memory safety. Nim also allows for zero overhead iterators and compile-time evaluation of user-defined functions, adding an extra layer of safety.

Surprisingly, you can write code in Nim and deploy compatible code for both the front end and backend infrastructure. The latest version, 2.04 has added concurrency capabilities with multi-threading. An interesting feature to note is that Nim includes JavaScript compilation.

Using Nim, you can write code and target output for JavaScript, enabling you to target client and server simultaneously. The syntax is quite similar to JavaScript but without the semicolons. You can just import DOM, create a function, and use it just like JavaScript.

It's pretty neat that you can write this using Nim and compile it for JavaScript. Looking at the code, it's clean and utilizes indentation for closure, similar to Python. But there are occasional curly braces.

Fewer curly braces mean minimal syntax and minimal code which is advantageous because every keystroke can be considered as code debt. it's elegant and straightforward to read Nim code.

[edgeeffect]

The best feature for me is that it uses C as a kind "substitute" for LLVM IR... which means that if I'm targeting some obscure or obsolete microcontroller I can write in a nice modern language but still use the vendor toolchain to get my binary. For me, that's the best of both worlds... where "the other world" is having to still write all my code in C.
I've been looking for something nice that's not C/C++ for doing DSP on near-obsolete microcontrollers for a long time... Looked at Rust, Zig and Odin... The thing that really clinched it for Nim was it's got operator overloading and compile-time execution and I'd like my weird clipped Q31 fixed point maths expressions to look like maths expressions not a load of function calls... thank you Nim.

[PouriyaJamshidi]

Hi Stephen,

Fantastic video and coverage in a few minutes. Nim is indeed very easy to pick up and read

[Ahmad_Suhairi]

A programming language as easy as GO, as simple as python and as fast as rust🤔

[BrdButtwski]

how suitable would Nim be for graphics or game dev?