Re: [Vala] [ANNOUNCE] Vala 0.7.8 - Compiler for the GObject type system

[pancake <pancake youterm com>]

Congratulations for the release!

Can you provide examples for every point in this changes list?

On Nov 4, 2009, at 11:21 PM, Jürg Billeter <j bitron ch> wrote:

> We are pleased to announce version 0.7.8 of Vala, a compiler for the
> GObject type system.
>
> Vala 0.7.8 is now available for download at:
>   http://download.gnome.org/sources/vala/0.7/
>
> Changes since 0.7.7
> * Support constructor chain up to GObject using Object (...).
> * Add syntax for string templates.
> * Support (!) non-null casts.
> * Many bug fixes and binding updates.
>
> 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.
>
> 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
>
> Vala is designed to allow access to existing C libraries, especially
> GObject-based libraries, without the need for runtime bindings. All  
> that
> is needed to use a library with Vala is an API file, 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
>
>
> Jürg Billeter
>
>
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