1: DrNim is basically additional annotations that are ignored, and you can choose to opt-in via a flag.
It's something you similar to MyPy for python and type annotations. The danger is if it becomes non-optional.
That said contrary too many languages, the core language doesn't need:
- threading
- async
which are huge parts to maintain, but thanks to metaprogramming you can implement them as libraries with very nice syntax as well. It also allows compiler devs to focus on what they know well, compilers and leave those 2 highly specialized areas to people who are experts (or become experts) in those.
2: There are 2 dimensions there: nil is used for C FFI, for higher-level primitives you can use Option.
And C FFI was needed to bootstrap Nim with a useful set of functionality and has an escape hatch so that people could start building early on and not wait for the language.
So both from a functionality and a time-to-market point of view it was necessary.
It's something you similar to MyPy for python and type annotations. The danger is if it becomes non-optional.
That said contrary too many languages, the core language doesn't need:
- threading
- async
which are huge parts to maintain, but thanks to metaprogramming you can implement them as libraries with very nice syntax as well. It also allows compiler devs to focus on what they know well, compilers and leave those 2 highly specialized areas to people who are experts (or become experts) in those.
2: There are 2 dimensions there: nil is used for C FFI, for higher-level primitives you can use Option. And C FFI was needed to bootstrap Nim with a useful set of functionality and has an escape hatch so that people could start building early on and not wait for the language. So both from a functionality and a time-to-market point of view it was necessary.