Peter Munch-Ellingsen

This talk builds on my previous talks about micro-controller programming in Nim, and my talk on writing a keyboard firmware from scratch in Nim. It outlines how a Nim ecosystem for microcontrollers can be built with zero-cost abstractions which means that the resulting code is almost exactly the same size as pure C code (no Arduino). All this while keeping an interface which is much nicer than anything you'd find in C, maybe even better than that of high-level microprocessor coding frameworks like MicroPython and TinyGo.

Nim is a statically typed language with a comprehensive meta-programming system. This makes it a really nice fit for micro-controllers, or otherwise hardware constrained environments (or to just use less resources in general). Based on my experiences with Nim and micro-controllers I'll dive into how meta-programming, DSLs, and Nims rich type system can be used to make nice readable code for micro-controllers without any added overhead compared to C. Both in terms of code-size, but also in terms of speed, in fact the code executed on the controller is pretty much the exact same thing, but with vastly improved ergonomics.

Nim is an interesting new language whose design is focused around the concept of a small core and great extensibility through a powerful macro system and multiple compilation targets. In this talk I want to showcase how Nim compiles to both C/C++ and JavaScript, and what this means for how easy interoperability and targeting many different platforms can be. Showcasing how the same language can be used for programming anything from the tiniest resource scarce microcontrollers to web-sites or web-technology based desktop applications (like Electron) to normal desktop applications and server applications.

Over the years I've visited languages on all levels of abstraction and paradigms, both through my studies but also in a professional capacity. One of the languages that have caught my eye is Nim, which ticks a lot of boxes for me, and leaves me wanting it's features in many other languages. Of the many interesting features in the language one of the most mentioned is the metaprogramming capabilities. This talk will briefly introduce Nim for those unfamiliar with the language, before diving right into the possibilities metaprogramming offer, with interesting real-world examples of its utility.