Add overview of features to readme #5256

timeyyy · 2017-01-20T09:52:52Z

This pr aims to open up dialogue about how best to market nim, the Why.

Ideally the overview and features presented should be chosen to match that story, The How

Concise overview of the nim compiler
Point to more information
Show the vision for nim
Show features targeting that vision
Move out information on nim development to wiki

timeyyy · 2017-01-20T10:00:15Z

I have pieced together some initial ideas based on the website and the wiki. If nim is indeed targeting the game industry compile speeds could be something worth talking about. Are compiler speeds being benchmarked and checked for regressions?

Araq · 2017-01-20T12:01:51Z

Are compiler speeds being benchmarked and checked for regressions?

The bootstrapping process reports timings and memory usage for this reason and I keep track of these numbers. So the answer is "yes" but it could be automated more.

stisa · 2017-01-20T13:03:29Z

Nice work!
Some suggestions:

add a link to the stdlib near awesome-nim.
I'd say the overview should only list high level features, maybe with a couple specific examples, btw of you keep it, I think 'high performance game' would sound better than 'high resource game'
use h3 headers ( ### ) instead of bold in the features section.
mention ide support (maybe in tooling?)

timeyyy · 2017-01-21T10:26:57Z

Whats the main target area of nim? If we have that defined we can filter features to present.

Araq · 2017-01-22T07:06:31Z

Whats the main target area of nim? If we have that defined we can filter features to present.

What is the main target area of C++? It's only been used for high performance computing, OSes, browers, game engines, Google's core algorithms, web crawlers, business applications ...

"It's good for everything" is bad for marketing though, so let's say it tries to excel/excels at async IO and C++ interop.

timeyyy · 2017-01-22T11:09:59Z

I've never written c++, will this c example also work for c++?

Araq · 2017-01-22T11:15:14Z

I've never written c++, will this c example also work for c++?

Yes pretty much, but you have to use importcpp.

timeyyy · 2017-01-23T12:47:27Z

"It's good for everything" is bad for marketing though

Targetting a single area will also alow tooling and libraries to grow in one area meaning instead of doing 30% of what everyone wants we can do 110% of what 5% of people wants. This polish in one area means industry is more liable to start using nim.

Gamedev is a nice target specially if we can utilize all those c++ libraries. @Araq mentioned another ui library a few days ago. Could be a viable market as there are alot of apps being made with webkit and electron(web technologies) producing binaries of 80mb. Kivy for python is the only alternative I found for developing apps quickly but it is implemented in python (sdl2) so it is not usable by other languages. A kivy clone in nim would be cool...

Araq · 2017-01-23T16:20:45Z

Targetting a single area will also alow tooling and libraries to grow in one area meaning instead of doing 30% of what everyone wants we can do 110% of what 5% of people wants. This polish in one area means industry is more liable to start using nim.

Agreed.

andreaferretti · 2017-01-24T10:56:18Z

readme.md

+  - [Hygenic Macros](http://nim-lang.org/docs/macros.html)
+  - [Low level memory allocation](https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Memory_allocation#Nim)
+  - [Type inference](https://nim-by-example.github.io/variables/type_casting_inference/) - Strongly typed
+  - Link to more features with examples such as  https://haxe.org/documentation/introduction/language-features.html


it's a todo item. :)

yglukhov · 2017-01-24T12:27:09Z

readme.md

@@ -1,9 +1,63 @@
 # <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nim-lang/assets/master/Art/logo-crown.png" width="36"> Nim [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/nim-lang/Nim.svg?branch=devel)](https://travis-ci.org/nim-lang/Nim)
+Efficient like C, expressive like Python and flexible like Lisp.
+
+```python


s/python/nim

dom96 · 2017-01-25T23:12:59Z

readme.md

@@ -1,9 +1,63 @@
 # <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nim-lang/assets/master/Art/logo-crown.png" width="36"> Nim [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/nim-lang/Nim.svg?branch=devel)](https://travis-ci.org/nim-lang/Nim)
+Efficient like C, expressive like Python and flexible like Lisp.
+
+```python


I don't think code examples belong in the Github readme.

dom96 · 2017-01-25T23:14:18Z

readme.md

+
+## Overview
+
+Nim is a modern general purpose programming language excelling in Async IO and C++ interop. These features make nim very suitable for:


Async IO and C++ interop.

I know @Araq said this but I find this lame.

So say something better.

dom96

Thank you for taking the time and initiative to do this but overall I don't think it belongs in the readme. Best thing is to move this discussion into the website repo.

yglukhov · 2017-02-13T13:29:00Z

readme.md

+  - [Technical Roadmap](https://github.com/nim-lang/Nim/wiki/Roadmap)
+
+## Limitations
+  - Tail call optimization


IMO this is not worth mentioning. Even though Nim itself doesn't do tail call optimization, it still can be done by underlying C compiler.

Add overview of features to readme

6a05d3a

timeyyy added 2 commits January 22, 2017 12:26

Highlight c++ interop and asyncio

5ce3f49

add example to readme

738c9e7

andreaferretti reviewed Jan 24, 2017

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yglukhov reviewed Jan 24, 2017

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dom96 reviewed Jan 25, 2017

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yglukhov reviewed Feb 13, 2017

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timeyyy closed this Apr 23, 2017

This was referenced Apr 23, 2017

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Add overview of features to readme #5256

Add overview of features to readme #5256

timeyyy commented Jan 20, 2017 •

edited by Araq

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yglukhov Feb 13, 2017


		## Overview

		Nim is a modern general purpose programming language excelling in Async IO and C++ interop. These features make nim very suitable for:

Add overview of features to readme #5256

Add overview of features to readme #5256

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timeyyy commented Jan 20, 2017 • edited by Araq Loading

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