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Comment by interfixus | Hacker News Reader

Let me offer my apologies on behalf of the Danish nation for what we have foisted upon the world: Hejlberg's C#, Stroustrup's C++, Lerdorf's PHP, and Heinemeier Hansson's RoR.

TP and Delphi, obviously, require no apologies.

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C#, for all the platform limitations, is probably the best designed and evolved mainstream language out there.

And C++ powers Google, Facebook, 100% of AAA games, 90% of mainstream OSes, and 90% of all top-of-the-line commercial programs (from browsers and office apps, to Photoshop and AutoCAD).

Nothing to apologize about RoR either.

I never stopped to consider how much of the world's software is written in a Dane-designed language.

Isn't Pascal from Nicolaus Wirth, a Swiss?

Absolutely. But Turbo Pascal was a somewhat different kettle of fish, and very much a unique implementation.

Nothing's wrong with C#. When it came, it was a "better Java" in many respects, and that was a niche that was desperately begging to be filled. Over the years, it became even better at it.

I'm sure there's nothing wrong with it. It's just me being old school and curmudgeonly - not really hot on runtimes and complex dependencies. Although of course, if I really need it, Nim will compile my wonderfull code to js. Otherwise just singe, compact, standalone executables for any platform I care to imagine.

And yes, the language itself is a joy to code in. Which is opinion, not fact, I realize that.

Would you compare Nim to DLang (honest question)? If yes, how? I've been watching both and just waiting for an opportunity/excuse to build something using one of them

Yes. Both fast and AOT compiled languages with great compilers and probably not the best IDE support unless you count a bunch of plugins. Both have small and tight knit communities and have evolved fast. Neither are the best from a library perspective, but Nim can use C or C++ libraries easily. Doc isn't terrible. Nim has jokingly been called "New Improved Modula-3", so it has some things in common with Pascal, although it's syntax looks like Python with types, while D looks like a mix of C++ and Java.

thanks!

Np...I'll add that Nim has an awesome book out "Nim in Action" and D has a free book on their site. Nim has several different backends (C, C++, Objective C, JavaScript) that it can transpile to that leverage the insane optimizations that things like GCC and Clang can offer. Nim has multiple garbage collectors depending on the level of performance you desire.

Stroustrup brought sanity those of us that need to touch C based APIs, Hejlberg designed Java as it should have been done properly.

No need to apology for them.

Is that why the Danes are supposedly the happiest people in the world?

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