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[Leo]

Nim is for when you want to write low-level systems code but you don't hate yourself and aren't a masochist.

[dorianhill]

Nim is great for writing code without being distracted by all the language features. If you need more power, it's there, but you don't have to use it.

[leonlysak]

The main problem Nim's trying to solve is that of a programmer wanting a single language that's very elegant and expressive, that's also crazy performant, and gets out of their way so they can solve the other problems they come across.

[dwhall]

The presenter focused on the 2.0 release notes which are just the latest rough edges in the language to be rounded out. . . and that completely misses the primary strengths and really neat features of Nim. The shortest explanation of Nim I'd make is: as easy to learn as Python, 95% of the type safety as Rust without the unusual syntax, dirt simple C/C++ interop, fast builds and freaking easy to install on the big 3 platforms.

[bdjnk]

I started learning Nim a few days ago. I'm enjoying it tremendously. I would describe it as a pleasant language. It's easier to get into for me than Python was, let alone Rust.

[matrix]

Nim can produce extremely small binaries so it's probably the nicest way of writing for embedded devices. Outside of that Nim doesn't solve much, but combines the best of multiple languages as it tries to be simple but still universal. Nice Python like syntax, but with a strong type system, proper async implementation, compiled, powerful compile time macros and not far behind Rust and C in speed.
The main problem of Nim is the small adoption and everything that comes with it.

[adamkoxxl]

"Nim is a good language for everything." You may be skeptical while reading this, but I really think this is true. Yes, there is a steeper learning curve, but if you're already familiar with C and Python, it is not really that hard.

You can use it to program CLI programs, GUI programs, servers, microcontroller firmware, OS kernel, websites (Nim can also be compiled to JavaScript), etc.
It may have a bit strange sytax at first but I really like it the most of all languages I tried. It writes easy like Python but has a C performance.

Yes, there is are a few new concepts which can be harder to understand at first, but you don't need to really worry about them at first or at all if you don't need them (like macros/metaprogramming). However you can do wonders when you try to learn them.

Things on which I would like to see improvements on are a little better docs / tutorials and more mature ecosystem (comes with time).

[danielkik]

Nim is literally for low-level systems programming; it tries to follow the same niche as C as a general purpose language, but with more modern concepts and quite a bit more memory safety. It runs as fast as Rust in some cases, and it can be easily modularized.

I think the more adoption it has, the more of its merits you'll be able to see. Personally, I think Nim could use a more dedicated support for networking, with packet encapsulation and other things that would truly make it stand out in embedded systems programming.

[marvindavis]

I love the ORC name. The “O” is a visual pun because ORC is ARC + a cycle collector and the “O” is a circle, like a cycle.

[quintencabo]

Nim might be what i have been looking for

[stumblinzz]

"Why do you use Nim?" for me I am using Nim Lang because it feels like compiled lightning fast python, rusts memory safety, with the modern bells like types people lose their mind over in TS (I hate TS tho). It feels like I can write C code as a python/JS dev basically, and have it run in all kinds of places. No more JIT compilers like JS/python and having to use docker to ship my code.

[simonfarre]

I chuckled when he said OCaml is "getting faster industry adoption".

Dude, OCaml is 1 year younger than JavaScript.

OCaml is not getting wide adoption in some "blowing up sense." It's pretty obvious to me good ol' Prime is listening to his some-times co-host a bit too much 😅

[elijambu]

I've not written a lot of nim, but the bit I have aha been very fun. I think the core idea is the same performance as C with more abstraction, and without having to do manual memory management.
The "killer feature" is probably making macros a normally part of programming. Having macros be type safe and easy to write let's you do lots of cool things at compile time.

[lorenzogabriele]

About the C++ thing:
I think the C++ interop targets people that don't like C++ but are forced to use it if they want to use a certain library that is only available for C++.
If you like C++ better use it directly :)

[Jasonsimson]

the niche for nim is writing dsl specific programming language with powerfull macros

[RealRatchet]

One of the biggest usecases nim has it's seamless integration with python when python itself is too slow.

[ShadoFXPerino]

In order for OCaml it to see mass adoption, it will require 40-year old tech leads who passed it by 27 years ago when it was new to admit that they were wrong. That will never happen in the near future.

[aruZeta]

I haven't actually written anything in nim for like a year now (school taking my time and now I'm working as a dev), and woah totally forgot we were still waiting for Nim 2.0! I should take a look when I have the time to update QRgen to use this new version!

[jeezusjr]

That ocaml code looks more confusing than the nim samples I've seen.

[NoidoDev]

Nim is for people who like Python and it's syntax (or are simply used to it), but want it faster and with some additional features, for certain programs.