Congratulations for this release! Can you explain the new GBoxed-based memory management in vala? I know GBoxed is a generic wrapper for C structures, that only needs copy and free functions. And I know that in vala a type get's boxed when you use the '?' operator, like in 'string? s = null;'. So what is new for the user? Or is this just for bindings? best regards Jörn
> We are pleased to announce version 0.9.3 of Vala, a compiler for the > GObject type system. > > Vala 0.9.3 is now available for download at: > http://download.gnome.org/sources/vala/0.9/ > > Changes since 0.9.2 > * Support newlines in double quoted string literals. > * Add experimental support for main blocks. > * Add experimental vala tool to compile and run code. > * Initial support for generic delegates. > * Support using GClosure for delegate parameters. > * Support GBoxed-based memory management. > * Improvements to the .gir reader and writer. > * Various improvements to the Dova profile. > * 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 > > _______________________________________________ > vala-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/vala-list _______________________________________________ vala-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/vala-list
