

Nimrod: The Return of Pascal - p0nce
http://steved-imaginaryreal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/nimrod-return-of-pascal.html

======
mojuba
Simple and great idea that's been in my mind for at least a decade now
(seriously): just give us Pascal sets and ranges with Python-like super-
minimalist syntax and all the other sugar and fructose of modern languages.
And, if you can, some sort of unification of functions and classes,
JavaScript-style.

Nimrod is quite close, though probably not exactly there (yet).

Anyway, there are two kinds of programmers: those who build compilers and
those who start writing ones but never finish.

------
saejox
Possibly the best compile to C language. Easy to setup, fast, feature rich,
works nice with C and best part: configurable GC.

One thing i don't like tho: Case insensitivity. I write many in many
languages, all but Nimrod are case sensitive. Lot's of 'already defined'
errors. There is nice discussion about it here:
[https://github.com/Araq/Nimrod/issues/521](https://github.com/Araq/Nimrod/issues/521)

~~~
jk4930
Ada (Pascal-inspired) was designed to be a language that's safe against
(mediocre) programmers. And it's case-insensitive. Note that Ada is especially
made for reliable systems and they really look for error sources. Case
sensitivity didn't show up as a problem, so they didn't have to change it in
any later version (Ada 2012 now).

------
amarsahinovic
A recent discussion which includes Nimrod benchmark, for those who are
interested:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6263173](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6263173)

------
hcarvalhoalves
Pascal was (is?) a great language, never had trouble hacking and figuring out
Pascal/Delphi code, even code clearly written by below-average programmers. I
don't think many languages pass this litmus test.

Also interesting is looking at old Pascal code and seeing how it stood the
test of time. I had a lot of fun reading the Photoshop v1 source [1]

[1] [http://computerhistory.org/atchm/adobe-photoshop-source-
code...](http://computerhistory.org/atchm/adobe-photoshop-source-code/)

------
nnq
How come nobody comments about this feature of Nimrod:

> a powerful (AST based, hygienic) macro system

...and I can't find any easy to digest example of it? I know, macros are
"evil" and shouldn't be overused and this is not Lisp and all, but it actually
seems like a potential _killer feature_ for a language targeting the C/Rust/Go
niche.

~~~
lobster_johnson
Easy enough if you go to the Nimrod site and look at the documentation:

[http://nimrod-code.org/tut2.html#macros](http://nimrod-
code.org/tut2.html#macros)

[http://nimrod-code.org/manual.html#macros](http://nimrod-
code.org/manual.html#macros)

Note that Nimrod also has _templates_ , which also uses AST-based macro
expansion.

------
ret
Looks like Algol68 with some OOP.

~~~
coolsunglasses
Looks like Golang but cleaned up and with generics added in.

Maybe it's a bird, maybe it's a plane, maybe it's Superman.

------
stewbrew
Looks like a nice language. The warning of "Caution: This section is already
outdated! XXX" in the language manual makes me wonder though whether it's
ready to use.

------
mkr-hn
I used to frequent a bookstore whose owner loved Pascal. He didn't like it
when people pronounced it the way it looks.

------
reirob
I like the syntax, maybe because my first productive language was Pascal.

Does Nimrod support Unicode?

~~~
dom96
Yes, it does. In strings and for var/proc names.

