Re: [Vala] Getting the picture

[Juerg Billeter <j bitron ch>]

On Don, 2006-08-03 at 22:17 +0200, Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen wrote:
> I have been toying with gob2 in the past for generating C code for
> gobjects. I can't tell how exactly Vala compares to gob2, but it seems
> that the main difference is that Vala is a complete language, where
> gob2 had to fall back to inline C code quite often. Can you
> elaborate? 

Yes, GOB2 only translates declarations and generates some initialization
and destruction code but it doesn't translate the actual program code
while Vala is a complete language.

> One of my pet-projects-never-to-become-reality is a language
> completely based on the gobject/gtype system, where no intermediate C
> code is required. Just use runtime creation of the gobjects. Is this
> approach out of the question for Vala? 

The C code generation is just the implementation of the current Vala
compiler, it's of course not the only possible way. Generating assembly
code or better writing a GCC frontend for Vala would be very nice but
requires more work. This shouldn't make a large difference to developers
using Vala, though, the result after compilation is the same, a native
application/library creating GObjects at runtime.

> Anyway, I'm exited about Vala, it looks really cool.

Thanks,

Jürg
-- 
Juerg Billeter <j bitron ch>