I just put in a single comment "Use Nim" in an HN article - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14284734 and it has resulted in a massive attack and the resultant leeching of my hard earned HN karma :)
Will some kind Nim maven go over there and show the folks there how easy and short a Nim equivalent will be?
Promoting Nim is becoming a hazardous activity :)
Sorry, but I do agree with HN. By all means suggest Nim, but state your reasons for suggesting it.
@libman: whoa. That's too far, don't call another community "Nazi scum" in here again.
To be honest I am not that worried about the points, but it would be nice to see how the equivalent Nim program would look like.
Nor would there by any need to post it to the thread as well.
If you read the actual article, look at its horrifying Rust code trying for a ConfigParser substitute, and see the author's conclusion to stick with Python - "Use Nim" is EXACTLY the right response!
Should he have said: "Use Nim - it's a statically-typed compiled language that about equals Rust in performance, but has a much cleaner higher-level Python-flavored syntax, and a very Pythonic parsecfg module in stdlib"? That's only better for the RTFMably challenged readers who've never heard of Nim before (like those down-voters, most likely).
I have a long history as an on-topic but unpopular iconoclast in many online communities. My comments on HN are deceptively censored, which is an extremely intellectually dishonest practice - there's no debate, no analysis, no substance, no respect for truth; just brute power through selective proliferation of information. My anger at them is 100% justified!
And note that I didn't call their whole community "Nazi scum", as in the historical political party. I called some of them — the down-voters, the savage stiflers of ideas they don't like — "intolerant trigger-happy nazi scum". Lowercase "nazi" means "obsessive mean person", like: a "soup nazi", a "grammar nazi", or a "license freedom nazi" (like me). ;)
it would be nice to see how the equivalent Nim program would look like. Nor would there by any need to post it to the thread as well.
Why would someone spend time writing anything beyond "Use Nim" on a deceptive libricidal site like HN, which would send their thoughtful detailed arguments and code examples to /dev/null?
@libman:
I have read the article and do agree that Nim is perfect for the author's use case. But this is not how we, as a community, should be encouraging people to advertise Nim. You are suggesting Nim so the onus is on you to explain why you have suggested it.
Imagine somebody in a train reading HN comments lazily and seeing "Use Nim", expecting the reader to take the initiative and research what Nim is is unrealistic especially when they are just absent mindedly reading HN on a train ride from work. I do this a hell of a lot, and I definitely would not bother to "RTFM".
I don't expect you to write a thesis about why Nim is the right choice here, but at least give one reason why you think so.
Indeed. I agree censoring is bad, but there are cases when it is justified. I don't have time to debate this right now, and I won't be censoring you here even though I probably should.
What I will do however is give you a temp ban, there is a world of difference between saying "grammar nazi" and "nazi scum". The former is generally accepted as fairly innocuous slang, but the latter is just plain cruel and offensive.
I am a member of the HN community and respect a lot of them. Are they perfect? No. But they don't deserve such hatred, nor does anyone else for that matter.
@vonH People told you why they downvoted you. And no, it's not time for a "Nim Evangelism Strikeforce", this isn't something to aim for. It's time to write thoughtful comments that encourage developers to use Nim, not "drive-by" comments that give our community a bad name
I don't think there is a true Rust Evangelism Strikeforce, it is just a joke about the phenomenon on HN and other forums where every other day someone writes about a new use case for Rust, and promotes Rust as fix for the problems in C and C++ or some other security flaw that wouldn't happen with Rust.
Reading Nim posts on HN reveals that documentation is what any Nim Evangelism Strikeforce should devote their attentions to, but I will be working on those GIF memes :)
It's time to write thoughtful comments that encourage developers to use Nim
Agreed, but we have some issues. Consider the excellent article in 'How I start: Nim', which begins
Nim is a young and exciting imperative programming language that is nearing its 1.0 release.
Wat? Nim has been nearing it's 1.0 release for a few years now; one of the nice intros, also by @def, says
But on the bright side, Nim 1.0 is supposed to be released within the next 3 months!
and this is from January 2015.
I realize that Nim has been pretty good about breaking changes, but that's still not encouraging. Many developers I know would avoid Nim for that reason alone.
Sorry for the thread hijack...
Agreed, but we have some issues.
Every language has issues. But I get your point: you want 1.0 to be released ASAP. I want that too, but I also believe that we have to be careful, releasing 1.0 before Nim is truly ready could be disastrous for its future.
I don't think Nim is ready for 1.0 yet. It's close, but not quite there. Unfortunately I have no idea how long it will take to get it ready. The only way to make that time come sooner is to help us. I shouldn't need to remind you that Nim is an open source project developed by passionate people in their spare time (this is still mostly the case nowadays), we really need everyone to pitch in.
I shouldn't need to remind you that Nim is an open source project developed by passionate people in their spare time (this is still mostly the case nowadays), we really need everyone to pitch in
An article/tutorial/example for starting hacking the Nim would greatly help, I think ;)
@vonH IMO, Your comment, that simple sentence, on HN was unfortunate I think. By itself actually won't harm, and many would laugh it off. But in this case, there are still many people think the language as if it's religion, so, when it comes to that, it won't end well :D
Also, it would be nice to mention the pros and cons about it because when you're promoting the good thing only, people would instinctively smell something from it :P
I don't think Nim is ready for 1.0 yet. It's close, but not quite there.
I agree with you, so please take this in good fun :-).
@dom96
Is there a list of tasks that need to be completed before 1.0? I'm not very experienced when it comes to working on a programming language, but I'm willing to learn. I could start with small bugfixes and the like.