Hi, I've been playing with Vala for about two years or so and like very much what I can do with it.
I have to agree with Matthias: improvement and correctness go over backward-compatibility at this stage. It's perfectly fine to use a specific compiler version to build broken software and disting C sources to avoid the mess. Personally, I would really get more involved in the language and learning its internals is one of my goal. I will still be using Vala for at least the coming years by shaping my master around it. To get more contributors, there's a couple of things that we should do: - automate tests via some CI and check submitted patches - more tests - publish coverage reports to guide efforts There's a lot of potential of getting people learning and contributing to the core if we let them submit tests. I managed to get *official* support for Vala from Codecov https://codecov.io/. While it's a not a FOSS platform, they pretty much only run gcovr/lcov and generate user-friendly reports. It would be a nice way of covering the last point. Also we have to be realistic: Vala is amazing when it comes to writing software that integrates with GLib and we have to focus on the quality of the C code generation. Outside that scope, the ground is already taken by other languages. I like the idea of using Vala for Web applications as the languages provide a lot of features that are perfectly designed for that purpose. If I can get Valum anywhere, I'm pretty sure that it could attract a lot of interest. Thanks Jürg and Luca for the hard work, I think everyone here really appreciate what you have done and how you've led the project so far. 2016-09-13 18:07 GMT-04:00 Matthias Berndt <matthias_ber...@gmx.de>: > > Hey, > > > With Luca leaving the project ([Vala] Leaving the project < > https://mail.gnome.org/archives/vala-devel-list/2016- > September/msg00000.html>), the situation is now even more > > critical. Given that Joerg obviously has no time or interest it > basically means that there > > is no-one left who used to help developing the core language. > I'd actually be interested, and I have a few ideas for improvements. > However, the main problem I see is that > it's very hard to get patches merged or discuss technical issues with more > experienced developers. And thus > the vala project in its current form is unable to recruit new compiler > maintainers. Questions or suggestions > on vala-devel-list don't get answers and it's similar on the IRC channel. > Worst of all, even small patches > take ages to be reviewed, e. g. this one: > https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=615830 > It's just very tiring when one's efforts are ignored for weeks and the > general impression is that new > developers are something the project doesn't give a tuppeny-cuss about… > In addition to that, I also believe that Jürg's decision not to merge the > patch is misguided. If clear and > obvious bugs like that (short summary: the compiler accepts code such as > List<int> l = new ArrayList<string>()) > are retained because of broken third-party projects (shotwell was > mentioned), then it's impossible to move > things forward. And guess what: open source developers do what they do > because they do want to move things > forward. And if they can't do it in vala, they'll soon find some other, > more welcoming project. And while > I understand the importance of backwards compatibility, I don't think it's > as important for vala as it is for, > say, the kernel. Unlike the kernel, one machine can easily run two > different versions of the compiler > simultaneously, and if the shotwell people want to compile old, broken > code, I think it's entirely reasonable > to expect them to keep an old, broken compiler version around to do so. Of > course, the far more likely case is > that they, like basically anyone else, actually *want* the compiler to > tell them about their broken code so they > can fix it! Not to mention all the other user who'd like to have this fix… > > Oh, Jürg, if you're reading this: I hope you don't take any of this > personally. > > > > The bindings is another situation, those are quite vivid, from what I > can see. > > > > Some words on my personal situation: Although I have been inactive as > well for > > the past couple of years, I’m still willing to maintain the VAPIs I > started or contributed a lot to > > (i.e. linux, posix, alsa, netlink, etc.). > > My pet project, the special-interest-middleware FSO – freesmartphone.org > <http://freesmartphone.org/> – is very dependent > > on Vala, I guess it is among the top 10 largest Vala projects and during > the development I helped > > Joerg getting a number of great Vala features in a solid state, such as > coroutines, closures, async dbus, etc. > > Alas, my knowledge of the compiler internals is zero. One reason why FSO > has been stalling is that I'm unsure > > about whether Vala is going anywhere towards a stable (with reasonably > sane criteria of stableness) 1.0. > > I’m also the creator of numerous bug entries where Vala generates > invalid C code and the Vala programmer > > is scared with an incomprehensible gcc error message. As far as I can > see many of those are still open for a > > bunch of years now – which makes me feel somewhat pessimistic about the > future of Vala. > Well, given that the official maintainers are effectively inactive, the > future of Vala is clearly what we > make of it! Have you ever thought about hacking the compiler? I didn't > find it that hard on a technical level, > and I'd certainly answer any questions I can. > > > I’d welcome advise from the father of Vala, Joerg (or anyone other with > solid knowledge of the core), > > to give us some direction. Would a redesign / rewrite be necessary to > move forward to an 1.0 or > > would refactoring the compiler be enough to lower the contribution > barrier? > Well, it depends on where we want to take the language! I have a few fixes > and features in mind that I'd like > to address, and I can go into more detail if anybody is interested. What > is it that you would like to see? > > Cheers, > Matthias > _______________________________________________ > vala-list mailing list > vala-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/vala-list > -- Guillaume Poirier-Morency <guillaumepoiriermore...@gmail.com> Étudiant au baccalauréat en Informatique à l'Université de Montréal Développeur d'application web *Mon blog:* arteymix.github.io *Mon projet de coopérative:* pittoresque.github.io *Clé PGP:* B1AD6EA5 <https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=vindex&search=0x1CCFC3A2B1AD6EA5> _______________________________________________ vala-list mailing list vala-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/vala-list
