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Comment by qwerty456127 | Hacker News Reader

Looks cool already but is it easy to cross-compile? I can copy a Python script from my Linux machine and run it on both Mac and Windows PCs. Can Nim build executables for other platforms nearly as easy?

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In addition to compiler switches that allow you to cross compile from the nim compiler [0], you can compile to c or c++, and then invoke whatever cross-compilation toolchain to compile to more esoteric platforms.

[0] https://nim-lang.org/docs/nimc.html#cross-compilation

If cross-compilation is important to you, and you like Nim's level of abstraction, you might have a look at Haxe, which can compile to [lots of different targets](https://haxe.org/documentation/introduction/compiler-targets...).

Yes! I use Nim on macOS to build a Windows exe for bootstrapping a Windows VM. A year ago, you had to dig a little to figure out the right command line incantation, but maybe it's better now.

Well, you sorta can. As long as you wrote it:

* to work in both Python 2 and 3 (no telling what other system's Python will be) * don't use any modules outside of stdlib (that requires install too)

Those aren't always requirements, but they are the reason I reach for compiled languages when I can't control the target environment where the program needs to run (or don't want to).

Yes, Nim is cross-platform.

It also targets C, C++, Objective-C and Javascript, making it possible to run on platforms where using C is not the preferred choice.

cross-compiling to ARM embedded was surprisingly simple

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