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nitlang/nit

Nit language
Source code at GitHub http://nitlanguage.org
nitlang/nit.json
{
  "createdAt": "2009-10-06T15:03:00Z",
  "defaultBranch": "master",
  "description": "Nit language",
  "fullName": "nitlang/nit",
  "homepage": "http://nitlanguage.org",
  "language": "C",
  "name": "nit",
  "pushedAt": "2024-11-25T15:42:26Z",
  "stargazersCount": 250,
  "topics": [
    "compiler",
    "language",
    "nit"
  ],
  "updatedAt": "2025-08-12T13:05:50Z",
  "url": "https://github.com/nitlang/nit"
}

Nit is an expressive language with a script-like syntax, a friendly type-system and aims at elegance, simplicity and intuitiveness.

Nit has a simple straightforward style and can usually be picked up quickly, particularly by anyone who has programmed before. While object-oriented, it allows procedural styles.

The Nit Compiler (nitc) produces efficient machine language binaries.

Some Nit features:

  • Pure Object-Oriented.
  • Multiple Inheritance.
  • Realist typing policy.
  • Light and clear syntax.

Requirements:

Those are available in most Linux distributions

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential ccache libgc-dev libunwind-dev pkg-config

and on OS X using brew

$ brew install ccache bdw-gc libunwind-headers pkgconfig

or with MacPorts

$ sudo port install ccache boehmgc libunwind-headers pkgconfig

Important files and directories:

  • benchmarks/ Script to bench the compilers
  • bin/ The Nit tools
  • c_src/ C code of nitc (needed to bootstrap)
  • clib/ C code needed by nitc to compile programs
  • contrib/ Various Nit programs (may or may not be useful)
  • doc/ Documentation
  • examples/ Program examples written in Nit
  • lib/ Nit standard library
  • LICENCE License of the software
  • Makefile Bootstrap the Nit tools
  • misc/ Some additional files for common text editors and tools
  • NOTICE.md List of the authors
  • README This file
  • share/ Common resources used by tools
  • src/ The Nit tool sources (written in Nit)
  • tests/ Non-regression test-suite

How to start:

$ make
$ bin/nitc examples/hello_world.nit
$ ./hello_world

You can source misc/nit_env.sh to setup your environment like PATH, MANPATH and bash completion. To have your environment automatically configured at login, just source it with install as argument.

$ . misc/nit_env.sh install

More tools:

Additional tools can also be compiled but require more dependencies.

Contributing:

To contribute to Nit, please see [CONTRIBUTING]!(CONTRIBUTING.md).

The best way to ask the team for advice, submit bugs or request features, is through the use of Github issues, using the appropriate tag (forum, feature-request, bug).

Information, contacts and help: