[Vala] [ANNOUNCE] Vala 0.0.4 - Compiler for the GObject type system

[Jürg Billeter <j bitron ch>]

We are pleased to announce version 0.0.4 of Vala, a compiler for the
GObject type system.

Changes since 0.0.3
 * Support + operator in strings.
 * Support unicode character literals.
 * Add implicit conversions for numeric types.
 * Improve interface support.
 * Improve array support.
 * Support arbitrary signal parameters.
 * Add threading support.
 * Support lock statements.
 * Many improvements to the GTK+ bindings.

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 [PLANNED]
        * Non-null types [PARTIAL]
        * 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
experimental 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://vala.paldo.org/


The Vala Team

        Jürg Billeter and Raffaele Sandrini

-- 
Juerg Billeter <j bitron ch>