Preface

Nim has been my labor of love over the years. Gradually, from the time I discovered it, I’ve become increasingly involved in its development. Although I sacrificed considerable time working on it, Nim gave back in the form of experience and knowledge. My work with Nim has taught me far more than any other work or studies have done. Many opportunities have also opened up for me, a shining example being this book.

I never actually thought I would end up writing a book, and until a Manning acquisitions editor got in touch with me, I didn’t realize that I wanted to. While planning this book, I looked to other books and determined where they fell short. I realized that this, the first book on Nim, must be written for programmers with a bit of experience. I decided that I wanted to write a book that teaches programmers about Nim, but that also teaches other programming concepts that work well in Nim’s particular programming paradigms. These concepts can also be applied to other programming languages and have been very useful in my career.

My other goal for this book was to make it fun and engaging. I decided to do this by building some chapters around small projects. The projects are designed to be practical and to teach a number of Nim features and concepts. By following along and developing these projects, you’ll gain hands-on experience developing Nim applications. This should put you in a good position to write your own software, which is the ultimate goal of this book.

Nim in Action covers a lot, but it can’t cover everything. It shouldn’t be viewed as a complete Nim reference; instead, it should be considered a practical guide to writing software in Nim.

It’s my hope that this book helps you learn Nim and that you find it a useful reference for many years to come. I and the Nim community are at your disposal and are available online to help you solve any problems you run into. Thank you for purchasing this book and taking an interest in Nim.