I see that there are 2 Visual Studio Code extensions for nim. The one that has the most downloads by far is vscode-Nin (https://github.com/pragmagic/vscode-nim). That one is not updated very frequently. I don’t think it even claims to support nim 1.0, let alone 1.2. In its documentation it still references VSCode 0.10!
There is another one called Nim-alt (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=garym.nim-alt) which seems to be a fork of the first one (perhaps due to the lack of activity in the first one?). It has been updated more recently and claims to have fixed some problems with the original extension. Which one do you guys recommend?
I know that editors and IDEs are very personal choices for a lot of people. Yet I think that I order for nim to become a more mainstream language there should be at least one good quality, up to date extension for at least one of the major editors. From what I’ve read in this forum VSCode seems to be the most commonly recommended nim programming environment. The fact that the available VSCode extensions seem to lag significantly behind the language does not look great.
Personally, I use the original plugin as I was not aware that an alternative one exists. This plugin seems in fact quite recent (first commit by Gary M on 20 April) and, logically, there is some activity on it.
Besides, we can’t say that the original plugin is abandoned as the last commit was on 26 March. And this plugin works with stable and development versions of Nim.
I have installed the alternative plugin to look at the differences. An issue with symbolic links I reported long time ago (for the original plugin) is also present in the alternative plugin, so we can’t expect all issues to be solved.
It seems that the main goal of this new plugin is to provide another style for syntax highlighting, while solving some syntactical bugs. I tried to compare the plugins and have not been convinced by this new style. But this is of course a question of taste.
For now, the original plugin is still maintained, even it there are old issues still not solved. Maybe this new plugin will be more actively maintained or maybe not. Only time will tell.
You can install both plugins and do some comparisons to find the one which best suits your taste. Activate only one at a time of course :-).
Yes, you are right. But as Nim syntax doesn’t change a lot, this is understandable. Nevertheless, there are several issues which should have been solved (easier said than done of course).
The alternative plugin seems currently more active. So, this may be a better choice in the future. But I think that most current users of the original plugin do not even know that an alternative now exists. And, most are satisfied with the original plugin despite some issues.