[HN Gopher] NimConf 2026: Dates Announced, Registrations Open
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NimConf 2026: Dates Announced, Registrations Open
Author : moigagoo
Score : 102 points
Date : 2026-04-14 11:19 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nim-lang.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (nim-lang.org)
| dhruv3006 wrote:
| Nim seems to be picking up a lot lately.
| shevy-java wrote:
| Not sure. I think it has a problem many languages have - too
| small a community. There is a lot of fragmentation in the last
| some years, I am not sure why, not just about nim but just look
| at how ruby has been dropping like a hot potato in the last ~3
| years or more. I am so out of the loop that I could not even
| tell anyone what the young people are doing. Are there more who
| program than before? If so where do they go?
| ModernMech wrote:
| My students (18-21) are excited to learn Rust in my class I
| teach about programming languages. Younger students are
| learning Luau via Roblox -- spoke with a middle schooler on
| Sunday who was making games with his friends. They get
| introduced to Scratch in school and learn that until they
| move on to Java at middle and high school. I teach freshman
| Lua in their intro to engineering class, and they also go on
| to learn things like R, Matlab/Simulink, Python. Java, C, and
| C++ if they're a CS major.
| elcritch wrote:
| Combine that most CS students learn many languages with
| LLMs and coding agents and the size of the ecosystem isn't
| quite as important as it used to be. New hires can be
| productive from day 1. Missing libraries are relatively
| easy to add. Moreover the language characteristics can be
| more useful than ever: fast running, fast compiling, typed,
| easy to read, etc.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Yeah I think LLMs really help with the chicken-egg
| situation in language adoption. Contrary to many opinions
| that predict programming homogenizing around the big 3
| languages that exist today (because that's what the LLMs
| currently write) I think in the future more nice
| languages will gain adoption as they are written by LLMs,
| who as you note don't care about a lack of community
| surrounding those langs -- if they need a missing library
| the AI can just write it. Maybe they even add it to the
| language ecosystem for other AI or humans.
|
| I think Python is actually kind of the worst language of
| the top langs to be the lingua franca of AI, where more
| niche statically typed languages like Nim are better
| suited.
| corv wrote:
| As a Pythonista I tend to agree. I had high hopes for
| Mojo but it's taking its due time to become usable
| outside the narrow focus of GPU programming, whereas Nim
| fits multiple niches surprisingly well.
| sbmthakur wrote:
| One of my concern is LLMs are going to generate a lot of
| low quality code for languages that do not have
| sufficient discussions on forums like Stackoverflow.
| giovannibonetti wrote:
| That's why these niche languages need state-of-the-art
| compilers that enforce invariants more strongly. This
| way, they can catch most of the subtle bugs the LLM
| produces, sort of like antibodies.
| throwaway27448 wrote:
| Python at least has type annotations these days, even if
| they aren't enforced.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Python is a way, is Lisp's revenge after its AI winter
| dismissal.
|
| Finally, due to AI market share pressure, JITs in Python
| are a real thing, after all those years of PyPy being
| largely ignored.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Coding agents strengthen the value of low code platforms,
| and reduce even further the role of specific programming
| languages.
|
| Examples, workato, boomi, opal,....
|
| Many automations that used to be written in programming
| languages, deployed via serverless or containers, are now
| agents driven by prompts.
| throwaway27448 wrote:
| > New hires can be productive from day 1.
|
| ...or counterproductive, lmao
| poulpy123 wrote:
| Really ? From what I see it survives OK but there is no real
| progression. I like what I saw of the language, and I'm
| regularly impressed by the productivity of the community
| relative to its size so I would like to see it more successful
| but I'm afraid it will not happen.
| summarity wrote:
| It's growing but not a lot, I have some data here:
| https://pierretempel.com/p/nim-usage-on-github
|
| Most code I write is still Nim though.
| pjmlp wrote:
| It is another niche language looking for a project to kick off
| adoption.
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| The creator has been consistently clear in his take on "Why
| Nim?" It's a general purpose systems programming language,
| favoring procedural style, that's superior (or aims to be) in
| a variety of ways compared to whatever else you've been
| using. Hubris? Maybe.
|
| In practice, it's turned out to be an _" expert's tool"_
| that's more expressive-convenient than C/++ to do all manner
| of things in the realm of systems programming, from embedded
| to HPC. And it's got great C/++ interop, so you can continue
| to leverage those software ecosystems.
|
| In that respect, I'd say the biggest boon, rather than a
| killer project, would be for a famous programmer or shop to
| publicly and loudly adopt it as their everyday language,
| shouting its name for several years and saying things like
| "Wish we had started using this years ago, would have been so
| much better, look at all of these great apps and libraries
| we've been able to create and maintain more easily than if
| we'd stuck with C/++/Go/Rust/Swift!"
| pjmlp wrote:
| You could have written the same about D, Haxe, Roc, or any
| other language in this space.
|
| Every year millions of university students design new
| languages across the globe on their compiler classes.
|
| To productise any of them, there is a whole ecosystem that
| needs to be added on top, editors, graphical debugging,
| packages, AI tooling....
| dom96 wrote:
| Yep, precisely this. There are many languages out there
| that would have remained niche if it wasn't for a company
| sponsoring their development. Go is one of those. Rust
| too, and it just barely managed to get the critical mass
| it needed, likely because Mozilla had nowhere near the
| might of Google.
|
| Nim had a real chance at gaining a foothold, it just
| needed a company to back it. I think sadly that ship has
| sailed by now.
| elcritch wrote:
| I should give a talk. About what however? I've been happy with my
| progress on FigDraw (1), a 2D UI scene renderer using SDFs. Even
| made my own neovim ui shell with it!
|
| 1: https://github.com/elcritch/figdraw
| moigagoo wrote:
| Please do share your progress with FigDraw. Interactive demoes
| always look great.
| digdugdirk wrote:
| Oooo... That looks like it could make a great talk! Do you have
| examples of the neovim ui shell?
| repelsteeltje wrote:
| Such a pity that this is an online-only conference.
|
| Does anyone know of an IRL conference or meetup on Nim,
| preferably in EU?
| auxym wrote:
| There are ocasionally Nim talks at FOSDEM.
| moigagoo wrote:
| On the other hand, this format allows people from all around
| the world to participate.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| For everyone wondering who may have been unaware. It is 100%
| remote, so you can just show up. :)
|
| > NimConf 2026 is an online conference and it will take place on
| June 20th. It will be streamed for free and it doesn't require
| any traveling - you will be able to participate from your home,
| without any travel and accommodation expenses.
|
| https://conf.nim-lang.org/
| moigagoo wrote:
| I plan to give a couple of talks this year.
|
| Can't wait for NimConf, it is way overdue.
| zareith wrote:
| I like the nim language, but the lack of interfaces has been a
| bit of a turn-off for me.
|
| Do nim programmers not see the need for abstracting out behavior
| in a manner that different implementations can be switched
| somewhere else, or is there different idiomatic way to handle
| this?
| tinfoilhatter wrote:
| Nim doesn't have interfaces, but concepts + parametric
| polymorphism gets you a long way -
| https://jasonbeetham.ca/writeups/codereuse.html
| nick__m wrote:
| The concepts feature of Nim really looks like what your looking
| for https://nim-lang.org/docs/manual.html#concepts
| moigagoo wrote:
| We use custom types for that usually, optionally with
| parametric polymorphism.
|
| But as others said already, Nimony (codename for the next Nim
| iteration) introduces revamped concepts which should be even
| more convenient.
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