[Tozen]

> To be at the top of the pack, nim would have to really stand out somehow. Nim hasn't, so its a little bit niche somewhat mid-popularity language.

I'm not sure about this argument. If Mozilla had created and pushed Nim instead, would it be as popular as what they did for Rust? I'm sure the marketing department would have found some angles to push for Nim. Maybe it would have been memory management options or that its somewhat like a compiled version of Python. I'm sure corporate minds would have figured something out. So if we could see alternate dimensions, where Nim was under Mozilla, it might be nearly as popular.

As it is, some would argue that Rust is somewhat niche, reserved for cases where memory safety without a GC is both necessary and critical. Rust ranks 20th on the TIOBE index. While nothing to sneeze at, nobody knows if it will go higher on the charts or fall back down.

[bryanlarsen]

> If Mozilla had created and pushed Nim instead, would it be as popular as what they did for Rust?

In my opinion, definitely not. I knew people excited about and working in Rust back in ~2016 when very few people knew about Rust. They proselytized me, I converted others, et cetera. It's all grassroots spread and has nothing to do with Mozilla marketing.

And that grassroots marketing spread rapidly and easily because of Rust's killer unique features.