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[JN]

On Saturday, 13 June 2020 at 10:43:41 UTC, IGotD- wrote:
> On Friday, 12 June 2020 at 19:45:20 UTC, James Lu wrote:
>> "Ask HN: Why do you use Rust, when D is available?" 
>> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23494490
>
> It's funny how GC is repeatedly mentioned as a drawback of D, 
> however it is never mentioned as a drawback of Nim. Does this 
> have anything to do with that swapping out GC algorithms in Nim 
> is much more easy than in D? In D you can't really swap GC 
> algorithms by just changing a compiler option.

I think there are three factors (never used Nim):

1) [citation needed] but I think Nim is less popular than D, so 
it's below the radar. "There are only two kinds of languages: the 
ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses."

2) I think Nim attracts different types of programmers. Nim seems 
to me like a mix of Python and Pascal and it seems these kind of 
programmers are going towards it. D is openly courting C++ 
programmers and many C++ programmers have elitist attitudes 
towards GC.

3) I think Nim isn't really looking to offer any ways to avoid 
automatic memory management, be it ARC or GC. D is. "How do I 
manage memory in D?". There is always someone saying that you 
don't have to use GC in D, there's betterC, @nogc, allocators. 
Then someone always comes in to say half of standard library 
doesn't work and most dub packages expect GC. In Nim, it's like 
"how do I manage memory?", "oh, Nim handles that for you, enjoy 
your stay".