It does look very interesting. I was surprised to learn that it cross-compiles to C before being compiled. I'd be even more interested if there was an IntelliJ plugin for Nimrod.
Why? That's a fairly common strategy, GHC worked the same way until a few years ago (and IIRC you can still ask for compilation to go through C).
It makes for easier reading of the codegen (reading C source is easier than reading machine code, even if it's generated C source) and before LLVM made it much easier to leverage C compiler optimizations & multiplatform support.
It makes for easier reading of the codegen (reading C source is easier than reading machine code, even if it's generated C source) and before LLVM made it much easier to leverage C compiler optimizations & multiplatform support.