Learn Nim - Part 2 of n | Install Nim on your computer.

Read part 2 here.

If you read the previous article, you should know that I don't care much about what you mean by the word computer. However, it's hard to explain that each time. So, let me be specific. From now on, when I say computer I mean your desktop PC or your laptop running either Linux, MacOS, or Windows as its operating system.

You can also install and use Nim on your cellphones (I'm sure about Android), but I won't be getting into that.

Why do you need to "install" a programming language in your computer?

Computers are stupid devices; we need to teach ("instruct") each computer how to do anything.

We have to instruct the computer even to read and execute a program written using the Nim programming language which in turn is going to instruct the computer to do something. However, people have already created a program to teach the computer to do that. It's called the Nim compiler.

When someone says you have to install Python or C++ or Java on your device, that's what they mean. In Python's case, it's an "interpreter" (more on that later).

There are two ways to install Nim on your device.

  1. Install it using your operating system's installer provided by the Nim team (or your OS).
  2. Install it using a program like choosenim.

Go ahead and install Nim on your device by reading the instructions in the pages linked above.

Edit: I just learnt recently that Python is a compiled language!