Chapter 2. Getting started

 

This chapter covers

  • Understanding Nim basics
  • Mastering control flow
  • Using collection types
  • Handling exceptions
  • Defining data types

In this chapter, you’ll learn about Nim’s syntax, procedures, for loops, and other basic aspects of the language. Throughout this chapter, we’ll cover a lot of information to give you a broad taste of the language.

Before you begin, make sure you have Nim installed and that it works on your computer. You’ll also need a text editor to edit Nim code. Take a look at appendix B for instructions on how to install Nim and other related tools.

2.1. Nim syntax

The syntax of a programming language is a set of rules that govern the way programs are written in that language. You’ve already had a small taste of Nim’s syntax in the previous chapter.

Most languages share many similarities in terms of syntax. This is especially true for the C family of languages, which happens to also be the most popular—so much so that four of the most popular programming languages are syntactically heavily inspired by C.[1] Nim aims to be highly readable, so it often uses keywords instead of punctuation. Because of this, the syntax of Nim differs significantly from the C language family; instead, much of it is inspired by Python and Pascal.

1According to the TIOBE Index for December 2016, www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html.

2.2. Nim basics

2.3. Collection types

2.4. Control flow

2.5. Exception handling

2.6. User-defined types

2.7. Summary

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