nim-wiki/Unofficial-FAQ.textile

If you are looking for the official FAQ then you can find it "here":http://nimrod-code.org/question.html.

h1. How can I help?

For beginners I suggest to implement missing parts of the standard library or some other more specialized libraries:

* locale support
* bignums
* a lean GUI library
* libraries for scientific computing
* libraries that deal with multi-media
* etc.

h1. How does the Nimrod compiler's versioning scheme work?

Versions with a trailing odd number are considered to be "in-development", these are unstable "bleeding-edge" versions of the compiler which you can get from Github. Versions with an even number are releases. E.g. 0.9.0 is a release version, 0.9.1 is an in-development version.

h1. Will Nimrod have block comments?

Most probably not. Reasons for avoiding them are:

* If proper block comments exist, they should be nestable. This means you cannot tokenize Nimrod with regular expressions anymore.
* The editor can be used to put "#" in front of every line.
* "when false" is not a bad solution. At least syntax is still checked for deactivated code.
* discard """ """" is another solution. 

h1. Why is it case/style insensitive?

*  Identifiers which only differ in case are bad style. If the programming language treats them the same the programmer needs to come up with different names for different things.
* Case insensitivity is widely considered to be more user friendly. This holds for file systems, configuration files, and programming languages.
* Many programming languages are case insensitive: Lisp, Basic, Pascal, Ada, Eiffel, Fortran. Since software for aircrafts and power plants has been written in Ada, it seems reasonable to assume that case insensitivity will not destroy civilisation.
* Note that most people confuse case sensitivity with case consistency (which is indeed good style). However, case consistency is easier to achieve with case insensitivity and a properly configured IDE than with case sensitivity.

h1. Where can I find code examples?

You can find examples in the "examples/":https://github.com/Araq/Nimrod/tree/master/examples directory. There are also many other examples available on "Rosetta Code":http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Nimrod.
Updated Unofficial FAQ (textile) 2013-04-05 16:23:33 +00:00			`If you are looking for the official FAQ then you can find it "here":http://nimrod-code.org/question.html.`

Migrated from unofficial-faq v1 2010-09-14 10:11:18 +00:00			`h1. How can I help?`

Updated How can I help? (textile) 2011-11-09 00:46:57 +00:00			`For beginners I suggest to implement missing parts of the standard library or some other more specialized libraries:`
Migrated from unofficial-faq v1 2010-09-14 10:11:18 +00:00
			`* locale support`
			`* bignums`
			`* a lean GUI library`
Updated How can I help? (textile) 2011-11-09 00:46:57 +00:00			`* libraries for scientific computing`
Typo 2011-12-31 06:48:02 +00:00			`* libraries that deal with multi-media`
Updated How can I help? (textile) 2011-11-09 00:46:57 +00:00			`* etc.`
Migrated from unofficial-faq v1 2010-09-14 10:11:18 +00:00
Updated Unofficial FAQ (textile) 2013-01-24 16:44:51 +00:00			`h1. How does the Nimrod compiler's versioning scheme work?`
Added info about Nimrod's versioning scheme. 2013-01-24 16:44:27 +00:00
			`Versions with a trailing odd number are considered to be "in-development", these are unstable "bleeding-edge" versions of the compiler which you can get from Github. Versions with an even number are releases. E.g. 0.9.0 is a release version, 0.9.1 is an in-development version.`

Migrated from unofficial-faq v1 2010-09-14 10:11:18 +00:00			`h1. Will Nimrod have block comments?`

			`Most probably not. Reasons for avoiding them are:`

			`* If proper block comments exist, they should be nestable. This means you cannot tokenize Nimrod with regular expressions anymore.`
			`* The editor can be used to put "#" in front of every line.`
			`* "when false" is not a bad solution. At least syntax is still checked for deactivated code.`
			`* discard """ """" is another solution.`

			`h1. Why is it case/style insensitive?`

Updated How can I help? (textile) 2011-12-30 18:59:04 +00:00			`* Identifiers which only differ in case are bad style. If the programming language treats them the same the programmer needs to come up with different names for different things.`
Migrated from unofficial-faq v1 2010-09-14 10:11:18 +00:00			`* Case insensitivity is widely considered to be more user friendly. This holds for file systems, configuration files, and programming languages.`
Updated How can I help? (textile) 2011-12-30 18:59:04 +00:00			`* Many programming languages are case insensitive: Lisp, Basic, Pascal, Ada, Eiffel, Fortran. Since software for aircrafts and power plants has been written in Ada, it seems reasonable to assume that case insensitivity will not destroy civilisation.`
Added 'Where can I find code examples?' question. 2011-12-30 18:56:55 +00:00			`* Note that most people confuse case sensitivity with case consistency (which is indeed good style). However, case consistency is easier to achieve with case insensitivity and a properly configured IDE than with case sensitivity.`

			`h1. Where can I find code examples?`

Fixed url. 2011-12-30 18:57:39 +00:00			`You can find examples in the "examples/":https://github.com/Araq/Nimrod/tree/master/examples directory. There are also many other examples available on "Rosetta Code":http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Nimrod.`