I had a bit of a case study in not using Nim for business recently. I had a green field freelance project but decided to use async python instead of Nim because of the greater developer pool. It's pretty frustrating, Nim would have been great. But it wasn't a stupid decision either. I was going to do this for a year tops and then spin it off to someone to get rid of it and do something else, that's just what I do, starting things. So I really needed to think hard on how hard it would be to replace me.
I know I can get a remote python person who is willing to do grunt work, and I know a PHP or Ruby person can get up to speed in Python in a few weeks because Python is not a subtle language once you learn to ignore the weird variables with four underscores.
I know plenty of Nim enthusiasts would jump on the opportunity to work with Nim full time, but I have no idea how each one would match with a very people-centric start-up that is not inherently technical, or how willing anyone would be to stick with the startup for the remainder of time. Startups are usually on the verge of failing all the time anyway, so having to pay someone for two months to learn Nim well enough to take over the shop might kill it.
Sadly, there is an added component. Because the above could be argued by anyone, I could be potentially sued according to German law for consulting error for failing to foresee or ignoring the risk of a less developed market for talent. Now, if I wasn't at least partially convinced myself by the above line of reasoning I would probably ignore the legal risk and trust I can argue against it if I really needed to. But a lot of people are more legally risk-averse than I am.
And so this led me to consider that large-company backed languages like Go and Rust actually solve two problems for the language- developer pool and group safety. So if I know Google is using Go then I know there will be demand for people using it, both in Google and by projects who are convinced by them. So that solves the chicken-egg problem of developer pool right there. Further, if I were to be sued for using Go, I could convincingly argue that if it's good enough for Google, it's good enough for my client (which is nonsense but I'm pretty sure it would hold up as a defense).
So this led me think of how to solve the problem. I think there should be a seperate "Nim in Business" tab on nim-lang.org. And there, there should be as much information as possible presenting Nim as the safe choice. This might seem counterintuitive for an innovative project by it's just a matter of perspective.
The main way most people in business present themselves as the safe choice- according to my HSG business bachelor's studies- are case studies. So you look at how company X bought company Y's product and vastly improved factors A, B and C that lead to success. Enough of those and it seems clear that Nim is a safe choice.
Someone on reddit used Nim in a project for a large bank as part of an IBM consultancy. This is gold- IBM basically invented the idea of "nobody ever got fired for using IBM", and banks are the very definition of the conventional, safe choice. If it's good enough for IBM, shouldn't it be good enough for Acme Lawnmowers' customer support system? The logos on the bottom are fine but the studies document actual use, so they do consist of valuable information. So all of those hidden Nim users should be found and convinced to present themselves. Ironically they might Nim want to stay a "secret weapon" so it might take some prodding.
Then on the business user page there should be some way to stay in touch, say an email newsletter, that has special Nim business surveys and a solicitation to participate in case studies. Hopefully, this would lead to a virtuous cycle of case-studies leading to more known use who would then be solicited to do more case studies. A list of freelance consultants who offer Nim services and perhaps a job board would be the icing on the cake for the business area.
If possible an angle could be chosen for the case studies along the lines of "This is how company X used Nim to beat Google" or "This is how company X used Nim to be much faster and better than their competitors who were lulled into using big-company tools"
"Hundreds of companies documented how they use Nim to beat big companies" or "Hundreds of companies win using Nim instead of being bogged down by Big-Company tools" is a pretty good message I think when other languages have "big company uses my language". Or at least it's start.
Now, like all potentially good ideas, they require work to implement. I might or might not be able to contribute to this particular effort myself but I thought I'd put the idea out there anyway to see what the community thinks about it.
Someone on reddit used Nim in a project for a large bank as part of an IBM consultancy
Do you have a link to that post? Big if true and Im not surprised that Nim was successfully used, just that it was used by IBM. Are you sure it wasn't IBM's product with the same name, 'NIM'?
Nim has a chicken-and-egg problem when it comes to business and for general use. The lack of Nim jobs is a problem. I'm using Nim for several projects myself, but nothing that's out there.
I don't think there's any shortage of people that know Nim on this forum though. I know that I myself know Nim well enough to take a job, although I may have to learn some very specific techniques if required.
I'm also hoping to help the situation by recently releasing the Nexus web framework as Open Source. This is meant to be like Django for Nim. Repo: https://github.com/jfilby/nexus. I know it needs more docs and examples, but it's getting there.
I tried to find the comment but couldn't.
But now that you mention IBM's NIM it seems plausible the commenter who mentioned his usage must had been referring to the IBM system, even though the thread was about the language. Thanks for catching.
But I'll take my inspiration where I can get it, even sloppiness ;) Because this idea that somewhere people could be using Nim as a secret weapon and not telling stuck with me. And from there the idea that case studies would probably really really help adoption.
Here is an unofficial list of some enterprises that uses Nim. https://github.com/nim-lang/Nim/wiki/Organizations-using-Nim
Btw, I still have not found how to edit this wiki.
the edit button is not visible for everyone, I think there is some setting that makes it visible only to (somewhat recent) contributors. I recently started seeing it after a documentation PR was made.
Someone with more knowledge than me (when was this changed? I do remember this setup was different) should comment on the details (or correct me if I am wrong). Also we should probably put this info in the wiki itself.