When comparing Nim vs twinBASIC, the Slant community recommends Nim for most people. In the question“What are the best compiled programming languages?” Nim is ranked 6th while twinBASIC is ranked 12th. The most important reason people chose Nim is:
There are generics, templates, macros in Nim. They can allow you to write new DSL for your application, or avoid all boilerplate stuff.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Great metaprogramming features
There are generics, templates, macros in Nim. They can allow you to write new DSL for your application, or avoid all boilerplate stuff.
Pro Strict typing
Checks your code at compile time.
Pro Has built-in unittest module
With built-in "unittest" module you can create test with a very readable code.
Pro Has built-in async support
Nim has "asyncdispatch" module, which allows you to write async applications.
Pro Compile-time execution
Nim has a built-in VM, which executes macros and some other code at compile time. For example, you can check if you're on Windows, and Nim will generate code only for it.
Pro Really cross-platform
The same code can be used for web, server, desktop and mobile.
Pro Easy to read
Nim has a lot of common with Python in terms of syntax. Indentation-based syntax, for/while loops.
Pro Multi paradigm
Imperative, OOP, functional programming in one language.
Pro Easy to integrate with another languages
You can use Nim with any language that can be interfaced with C. There's a tool which helps you to create new C and C++ bindings for Nim - c2nim.
Also, you can use Nim with Objective C or even JavaScript (if you're compiling for these backends).
Pro Garbage-collected
You don't need to deal with all those manual memory allocations, Nim can take care of it. But also you can use another GC, or tweak it for your real-time application or a game.
Pro Type interferencing
You only need to specify types in your procedures and objects - you don't need to specify type when you're creating a new variable (unless you're creating it without initialization).
Pro Built-in Unicode support
You can use unicode names for variables, there is "unicode" module for operations with unicode.
Pro Supports UFCS (Unified Function Call Syntax)
writeLine(stdout, "hello") can be written as stdout.writeLine("hello")
proc add(a: int): int = a + 5 can be used like 6.add.echo or 6.add().echo()
Pro 100% Backward Compatible with VB6/VBA
Any code that runs in VB6 will run in twinBASIC (once v1 is released). Code that runs in VBA will also run in twinBASIC, though you need to account for any dependencies on the host application's object model (e.g., the Excel or Access Application object).
Pro No runtime requirement
The lack of a runtime dependency makes twinBASIC applications very lightweight and portable. Additionally, compiled executables only include necessary code from any referenced libraries. The classic "Hello, World" program compiles down to an 8 KB .exe with no external dependencies.
Pro Compile DLLs to extend VBA functionality
Can be used to extend VBA functionality by compiling standard and ActiveX DLLs in both 32 and 64bit.
Pro 64bit compilation is supported
64bit compilation is supported, as well as 32bit.
Pro At last! a replacement for VB6
At last there is a replacement for Microsoft VB6 - and for VBA too - twinBASIC programming.
Cons
