Re:Python vs. NumPy vs. Nim
by cicero on Monday May 14, 2018 @10:58AM
(#17066084)
At this stage in my career, Python is my most used language, but I would prefer static typing (ideally with type inference) and native executables. I've been learning Haskell for that reason, but I see that Nim would also fulfill those requirements. How does Nim compare with Haskell, including its maturity and community?
Re:Python vs. NumPy vs. Nim
by narimiran on Wednesday May 16, 2018 @04:41AM
(#17080889)
> How does Nim compare with Haskell, including its maturity and community?
Nim is not as mature nor battle-tested as Haskell. Haskell has more users and it is more widely spread, so it would be a safe(r) bet.
I'm also coming from Python, and I have tried several languages (including Haskell) until I kinda settled with Nim.
I really like the similarities in the syntax between Nim and Python, which allows me to easily transfer my "Python thinking" into Nim code. There is also a possibility to only translate some slow/CPU-intensive parts of Python code to Nim, and then call it from Python (FFI).
Regarding community - the Nim community (IRC/Gitter) has been very welcoming to me and to my beginner/dumb questions - I guess this is the advantage of a small community - there's a sense of a connection and people want to help each other.
Re:Python vs. NumPy vs. Nim
by narimiran on Friday May 11, 2018 @02:42PM
(#17049814)
> What about Numba?
I'll copy-paste my Reddit comment:
Like pypy, numba was also on my radar, but I couldn't make it work by just slapping `@jit` decorator to the original code, and I didn't want to go into figuring out what's wrong nor making modifications to the original code.
>> I suspect it should be on par with Nim.
Somebody else [0] has run a comparison including Numba, where Numba is 1.5x faster than NumPy.
This means, if we can compare tests on the different machines, that Nim should be about 2x faster than Numba.
If you have any questions and/or comments about Nim, I'm ready to answer.
Nim is not as mature nor battle-tested as Haskell. Haskell has more users and it is more widely spread, so it would be a safe(r) bet.
I'm also coming from Python, and I have tried several languages (including Haskell) until I kinda settled with Nim.
I really like the similarities in the syntax between Nim and Python, which allows me to easily transfer my "Python thinking" into Nim code. There is also a possibility to only translate some slow/CPU-intensive parts of Python code to Nim, and then call it from Python (FFI).
Regarding community - the Nim community (IRC/Gitter) has been very welcoming to me and to my beginner/dumb questions - I guess this is the advantage of a small community - there's a sense of a connection and people want to help each other.
I'll copy-paste my Reddit comment:
Like pypy, numba was also on my radar, but I couldn't make it work by just slapping `@jit` decorator to the original code, and I didn't want to go into figuring out what's wrong nor making modifications to the original code.
>> I suspect it should be on par with Nim.
Somebody else [0] has run a comparison including Numba, where Numba is 1.5x faster than NumPy.
This means, if we can compare tests on the different machines, that Nim should be about 2x faster than Numba.
[0] https://github.com/henryiii/framework_compare/tree/master/li...
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> What about Cython?
I haven't tried it. It would be interesting to see the results.