Re: [Vala] Hi, Is Vala what I am looking for?

["Michael B. Trausch" <mbt zest trausch us>]

On Thu, 2009-09-17 at 11:20 +0200, Orlando José Luque Moraira wrote:
> Will Vala be in the future able to compile common c# projects with the
> original MS library references? (using other libraries) 

Welcome to the list.

It would be possible to write a similar framework library in Vala style,
but there would be little point.  Any C# code would still need to be
ported to use it.  Vala style is a bit different from C# style, and the
other major difference is that Vala is not garbage collected.  It uses
"assisted memory management" as opposed to garbage collection.  This
changes the way you have to think about objects in subtle ways.

You can use pointers to manage memory directly (in that case you can use
"delete" to free memory consumed by an object).  There was, I think,
some talk about using a garbage-collected mechanism, but I don't think
that ever amounted to anything.  It's possible that a fork of Vala could
be made that uses a runtime library and garbage collection, though I
don't know that the effort spent on it would be anything but
educational.  The nice thing is that standard tools can be meaningfully
used with software written in Vala, since it compiles to C in the first
place.

I'd recommend taking a look at the Vala presence on the GNOME Live
wiki[1] and also the documentation for the bindings.[2]  As you work
with the language and have more detailed queries, feel free to ask here.
Also, there is the #vala chat room on irc.gnome.org.  Happy Hacking!

        --- Mike

[1] http://live.gnome.org/Vala/
[2] http://valadoc.org/

-- 
Blog:  http://mike.trausch.us/blog/
Misc. Software:  http://mike.trausch.us/software/