We are pleased to announce version 0.1.0 of Vala, a compiler for the
GObject type system.
Changes since 0.0.9
* Add commandline options for running the C compiler and linker.
* Use # modifier for reference transfer in method parameters.
* Replace callback keyword by delegate.
* Improve and update GLib and GTK+ bindings.
* Add experimental GVFS binding.
* C89/MSVC portability fixes (Hans Breuer).
* Refactor code generator.
* Add experimental bindings generator.
* Many bug fixes.
Vala is a new programming language that aims to bring modern programming
language features to GNOME developers without imposing any additional
runtime requirements and without using a different ABI compared to
applications and libraries written in C.
valac, the Vala compiler, is a self-hosting compiler that translates
Vala source code into C source and header files. It uses the GObject
type system to create classes and interfaces declared in the Vala source
code. It's also planned to generate GIDL files when gobject-
introspection is ready.
The syntax of Vala is similar to C#, modified to better fit the GObject
type system. Vala supports modern language features as the following:
* Interfaces
* Properties
* Signals
* Foreach
* Lambda expressions
* Type inference for local variables
* Generics
* Non-null types
* Assisted memory management
* Exception handling [PLANNED]
Vala is designed to allow access to existing C libraries, especially
GObject-based libraries, without the need for runtime bindings. Each to
be used library requires a Vala API file at compile-time, containing the
class and method declarations in Vala syntax. Vala currently comes with
bindings for GLib and GTK+. It's planned to provide generated bindings for
the full GNOME Platform at a later stage.
Using classes and methods written in Vala from an application written in
C is not difficult. The Vala library only has to install the generated
header files and C applications may then access the GObject-based API of
the Vala library as usual. It should also be easily possible to write a
bindings generator for access to Vala libraries from applications
written in e.g. C# as the Vala parser is written as a library, so that
all compile-time information is available when generating a binding.
More information about Vala is available at
http://live.gnome.org/Vala
The Vala Team
Jürg Billeter and Raffaele Sandrini
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