[amyjess]

The best way I can describe Nim is that it marries Python syntax with Modula-3 semantics. It's not just "static-typed, compiled Python", it's the modern inheritor of the entire Algol-Wirth superfamily of languages.

The syntactic differences between Modula-3 and Nim don't mean much in the long run. It's just the fourth phase of this particular superfamily's syntax. It's a bit of an oversimplification, but the preceding syntactic phases can be clumped into "Algol", "Pascal", and "Modula". All of them have significant syntactic differences between them but ultimately come from the same heritage, and I see "Nim" as just the next phase of that.

(to elaborate a bit: when Wirth evolved Algol 60 into Algol W, he only made small tweaks to the fundamental syntax. He then siginificantly overhauled it when he evolved Algol W into Pascal and then Pascal into Modula(-2). Borland/Embarcadero's evolutions of Pascal are of the same category as Algol W in that they made small tweaks while keeping the core syntax the same. Wirth's further languages Oberon and Oberon-2 all kept the same fundamental structure as Modula-2, despite various small syntactic tweaks, as did Modula-3 which wasn't by Wirth but had his blessing.)