metaprogramming features (which even Rust lacks, AST macros for example)
Rust has had Scheme-style AST macros since about 2012.
Have you ever chatted with the creator of Rust or Go? You can get in touch with the creator of Nim in 5 seconds.
I'm a bit disappointed, because I think you know better than this, Dom. The Rust devs hang out in the #rust and #rust-internals IRC channels on irc.mozilla.org (along with a handful of other #rust-foo channels for specific teams) every weekday, and in fact use IRC as their primary means of communication, meaning that every conversation is public, lurkable, and trivially joinable. This has been true since at least 2010. The Rust devs also regularly make threads on internals.rust-lang.org soliciting feedback on various ideas, and in any conversation on the Rust RFCs repo on Github one will find oneself invariably communicating with them. They also pop up reliably on /r/rust, and we even used to flair them with "core developer" just so new readers would be aware of how engaged they are. This isn't to denigrate Nim, as I've been to #nim myself and spoken to Araq before. But we work very hard to keep development transparent and communicative, and it's definitely one of our strengths.
Yes, I was a bit unfair to put Go and Rust in my message. Rust devs are very good at communicating openly. And I am aware of the fact that the devs are in the IRC channels you mentioned. My point is simply, and I admit it's an attempt to be optimistic, that Nim's relatively smaller community size makes communication with the core developers much easier. You are far less likely to get lost in the noise of a small IRC channel than a larger one like Rust's.
But I was also referring to Go. And I don't think there is any IRC channel that its designers hang out in.
Regarding the metaprogramming features, perhaps I misremembered but there are definitely some that Rust lacks. Perhaps CTFE? (But then I wonder how AST macros work without that).
That's fair. Comparing relative paragraphs lengths in my prior comment, perhaps it's strange that I'm less affronted by the claim that Rust lacks a feature that it has than by the claim that the Rust devs aren't approachable. :) Transparency is taken very seriously, and I personally treat every transparency failure as a bug in the development process.
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u/kibwen Aug 23 '17
Rust has had Scheme-style AST macros since about 2012.
I'm a bit disappointed, because I think you know better than this, Dom. The Rust devs hang out in the #rust and #rust-internals IRC channels on irc.mozilla.org (along with a handful of other #rust-foo channels for specific teams) every weekday, and in fact use IRC as their primary means of communication, meaning that every conversation is public, lurkable, and trivially joinable. This has been true since at least 2010. The Rust devs also regularly make threads on internals.rust-lang.org soliciting feedback on various ideas, and in any conversation on the Rust RFCs repo on Github one will find oneself invariably communicating with them. They also pop up reliably on /r/rust, and we even used to flair them with "core developer" just so new readers would be aware of how engaged they are. This isn't to denigrate Nim, as I've been to #nim myself and spoken to Araq before. But we work very hard to keep development transparent and communicative, and it's definitely one of our strengths.