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         Questions and Answers
===========================================


General
=======

What is Nimrod?
---------------

Nimrod is a new statically typed, imperative
programming language, that supports procedural, functional, object oriented and
generic programming styles while remaining simple and efficient. A special
feature that Nimrod inherited from Lisp is that Nimrod&#39;s abstract syntax tree
(*AST*) is part of the specification - this allows a powerful macro system which
can be used to create domain specific languages. Nimrod does not sacrifice
flexibility for speed. You get both.

..
  Don&#39;t give me that marketing crap. What is Nimrod?
  --------------------------------------------------

  Nimrod = Mutable value based datatypes + static binding + sugar to make 
    this programming modell as convenient as possible


Why is it named Nimrod?
-----------------------
You have to find out for yourself. If you don&#39;t find a tongue-in-cheek 
interpretation you will have to look harder.


How is Nimrod licensed?
-----------------------

The Nimrod compiler is GPL licensed, the runtime library is LGPL licensed.
This means that you can use any license for your own programs developed with
Nimrod. If I receive enough requests with good arguments, I may change the
license of Nimrod to the BSD license.

How stable is Nimrod?
---------------------

The compiler is in development and some important features are still missing. 
However, the compiler is quite stable already: It is able to compile itself 
and a substantial body of other code. Until version 1.0.0 is released, 
incompatibilities with older versions of the compiler will be introduced. The 
semantic details of overloading, macros/templates/generics and iterators 
and their interactions are subject to change.


How fast is Nimrod?
-------------------
Benchmarks have not been ported yet and support for threads is missing. But in
the worst case, you can get the same performance as in C if you decide 
to write as low-level Nimrod code as C requires you to do. That said the only
overhead Nimrod has over C is the GC which has been tuned for years.


What about JVM/CLR backends?
----------------------------

A JVM backend is almost impossible. The JVM is not expressive enough. It has
never been designed as a general purpose VM anyway. A CLR backend is possible
but would require much work. 


Compilation
===========

Which option to use for the fastest executable?
-----------------------------------------------

For the standard configuration file, ``-d:release`` does the trick.


Which option to use for the smallest executable?
------------------------------------------------

For the standard configuration file, ``-d:quick --opt:size`` does the trick.


Execution of GCC fails (Windows)
--------------------------------

On Windows the configuration file ``config\nimrod.cfg`` assumes that GCC is in 
``$nimrod\dist\mingw\bin``: This is where the Windows installer puts GCC.  
If you delete the line ``gcc.path = r&quot;$nimrod\dist\mingw\bin&quot;``, Nimrod uses 
the GCC from your ``PATH`` environment variable. 

If you cannot modify ``$nimrod\config\nimrod.cfg``, copy 
``$nimrod\config\nimrod.cfg`` to ``%APPDATA%\nimrod.cfg`` and modify 
``%APPDATA%\nimrod.cfg`` instead. To determine what ``%APPDATA%`` means for 
your Windows account, use the shell command::

  echo %APPDATA%



How do I use a different C compiler than the default one?
---------------------------------------------------------

Edit the ``config/nimrod.cfg`` file.
Change the value of the ``cc`` variable to one of the following:

==============  ============================================
Abbreviation    C/C++ Compiler
==============  ============================================
``dmc``         Digital Mars C++
``wcc``         Watcom C++ (now unsupported!)
``bcc``         Borland C++ (now unsupported!)
``vcc``         Microsoft&#39;s Visual C++
``gcc``         Gnu C
``pcc``         Pelles C (now unsupported!)
``lcc``         Lcc-win32 (now unsupported!)
``tcc``         Tiny C
``llvm_gcc``    LLVM-GCC compiler
``icc``         Intel C++ compiler
``ucc``         Generic UNIX C compiler
==============  ============================================

If your C compiler is not in the above list, try using the
*generic UNIX C compiler* (``ucc``). If the C compiler needs
different command line arguments try the ``--passc`` and ``--passl`` switches.
Unsupported compilers contain serious bugs that keep them from bootstrapping
Nimrod.
</pre></div>