Re: Permission to use the book in YouTube video series.

[basilrwx]

Hi Stefan,

I wanted to know the specific requirements in gaining permission to use the book (the HTML or PDF versions of the book at nimprogrammingbook.com) for a video series on the Nim programming language for beginners. If I get your permission, how much of the problems and code can I use for the video series? Can I do a code-along? Or walk-through of the book?

Above all, how should I request for permission?

[StefanSalewski]

That is a difficult question.

Note that there are already many Nim videos. From Kilonei, and another guy with many videos, and recently someone published one more, at least part 1 of a series. And I think at Udemy some other guy created a series too. I can give you no links, as I never watch them, but I think you may find them yourself.

In general, most videos are very bad, often created by kids which have no knowledge about the language, and who have not even published at least one larger project. I think that is why my book starts with that quotation. Generally, my book tries to explain all the details very carefully, which does not match well to a video. I think the only not boring and useless Nim video which I am aware of, is the Nim in 100 secs from a guy who calls itself Firefly.

Do you have published a few fine Nim projects yet? Or do you have videos of other programming languages or similar, which I may use to judge your skills?

My first suggestions would be, to ask Mr. Rumpf if you can base your videos on his book. That would have the additional benefit, that videos would provide information to people who are not able to spend the 62 Amazon dollars for the book.

Next suggestion would be, that you learn the language, create at least two or three larger projects, and then create the videos. Then you would not need a book to copy wisdom.

I guess you are from India? Is Nim popular there, and may the English language be a problem for kids in India? We may consider a translation of the book?

[basilrwx]

1. Nope, I haven't published any Nim project except for this. I've been a JavaScript developer for a couple of years and pretty much a computing hobbyist for many years. I just picked up Nim recently. Kindly don't judge me harshly. 😬

2. One of my ideas was to code-along with your book and talk about the code and teach and learn Nim myself.

3. Sadly, Nim is not popular here yet. Only a couple (literally) of jobs exists in India. And no, English won't be a problem for kids in India for reading your book; because most kids who turn to computer programming would have gone to decent schools and have some fluency in English. Translating the book to languages like Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, and Tamil (top 5 languages) will ensure wider adoption, however, given the fact that Nim is not popular it may not be worth your time to translate the book to the above languages; English should suffice for now.

[StefanSalewski]

Thanks for your detailed reply. Actually, that is what I already assumed, but I was not sure.

One of my ideas was to code-along with your book and talk about the code and teach and learn Nim myself.

Actually, I see absolutely no value in such types of videos. Maybe there is some benefit for the author himself, as he learns to make videos. And perhaps benefit for people not able to read at all for some reason, but that people would always have a hard time in computer programming. Of course, I can not stop you from making such videos based on my book, but I would like it much better when you use the book of Rumpf for that. You could even use the old Manning book. Also note, there is one more new tiny Nim book at Amazon now, see https://nimprogramming.com/books/allbooks/#nim-programming-the-next-generation-programming-language-for-software-development.

Sadly, Nim is not popular here yet. Only a couple (literally) of jobs exists in India. And no, English won't be a problem for kids in India for reading your book;

That is what I assumed. For China, it may be different, there has been rumors some years ago, that Nim is popular in China. And people in China have more difficulty with English language. Some years ago, people suggested a Chinese and Japanese translation of my book. But the problem with translations of computer books is always, that we have to move fixes and additions from the English original to all the translations. Perhaps, when Nim 2.0 has stabilized, we could consider translations. I think soon AI tools will make translations easier, GPT-4 understands English language already very good.

Best regards,

Dr. Stefan Salewski