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digitalmars.D - Author of rust book explores Nim

reply "Laeeth Isharc" <Laeeth.nospam nospam-laeeth.com> writes:
Via HN

https://github.com/andreaferretti/on-rust-and-nim

The original email
I hope you don't mind if I contact you directly, and ignore if 
you're offended, but I saw your post on the parasail email list 
and looked at your KMeans benchmark.

In particular, I was interested in your statement that rust was 
hard and that you found Nim much easier. I'm interested in both 
and did some additional searching and found this from Dennis 
Felsing and he too likes Nim a lot.

I was wondering if you could expand on your dislike of Rust?

Again, feel free to ignore this email.

My answer
Hi,

I will be happy to expand. First, I should make clear that I do 
not "dislike" Rust. It is just that, while I appreciate some 
ideas in theory, in practice i have found it hard to use.

TL;DR:

Rust has good theoretical ideas, but they do not seem to 
translate to a very usable language.
Nim is more rough in the edges, some features interact in 
unexpected ways, and the language in general in bigger, but it is 
far easier, and in general it feels much more practical.
I would choose Nim for projects where I can afford a GC, and 
evaluate case by case for other projects.
Feb 14 2015
parent "Laeeth Isharc" <Laeeth.nospam nospam-laeeth.com> writes:
Clarification - author of the project unix in rust, not a book.  
He is a beginner in both rust and Nim.

On Saturday, 14 February 2015 at 17:12:00 UTC, Laeeth Isharc 
wrote:
 Via HN

 https://github.com/andreaferretti/on-rust-and-nim

 The original email
 I hope you don't mind if I contact you directly, and ignore if 
 you're offended, but I saw your post on the parasail email list 
 and looked at your KMeans benchmark.

 In particular, I was interested in your statement that rust was 
 hard and that you found Nim much easier. I'm interested in both 
 and did some additional searching and found this from Dennis 
 Felsing and he too likes Nim a lot.

 I was wondering if you could expand on your dislike of Rust?

 Again, feel free to ignore this email.

 My answer
 Hi,

 I will be happy to expand. First, I should make clear that I do 
 not "dislike" Rust. It is just that, while I appreciate some 
 ideas in theory, in practice i have found it hard to use.

 TL;DR:

 Rust has good theoretical ideas, but they do not seem to 
 translate to a very usable language.
 Nim is more rough in the edges, some features interact in 
 unexpected ways, and the language in general in bigger, but it 
 is far easier, and in general it feels much more practical.
 I would choose Nim for projects where I can afford a GC, and 
 evaluate case by case for other projects.
Feb 14 2015