Talk:Vala (programming language)

message: How is it memory managed if not garbage collected? Does the clause "The primary advantage of Vala over C++/gtkmm is that Vala is memory-managed (not using garbage collection)." mean that it is reference counted, which is sometimes explained as garbage collection, sometimes not. C++ is not garbage collected, and memory management is crude, but then is Vala better? 
I should say that one possible advantage of Vala could be that it is not C, nor C++. C++ has deep trouble in the specification, giving the significant deficiencies:
* templates are essentially failed, it is not possible to write templates that works on all compilers, and it is not possible to write templates that can generate types from both inbuilt types and user defined types,
* the objects are so badly specified, that object initialization is not possible in systems with pthreads (parallell threads), and objects cannot be shared over shared memory either,
C has much much less deficiencies, most of which are impractical inconveniences:
* the inbuilt types doesn't define anything, you cannot be garanteed more than one bit of information, it's in theory fairly impossible to write working programs, but in practice there is some kind of de-facto standard of type sizes which the C standard doesn't care about (!!),
* the type control of C is weak - sometimes held forth as a blessing, but as any real programmer know, there are situations when you wish to override types, and other situations when you wish a really tough type control;
Said: Rursus ☻ 08:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Answering myslef: reference counting it is. I'll update accordingly. Said: Rursus ☻ 09:25, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Feel free to fix spelin erors and formulation fawltzz. Said: Rursus ☻ 09:31, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Mem mgmt?

message: The current OS support reads as "Every platform with an ANSI C compiler, Vala generates C code" This seems a bit misleading since GObject isn't ported to every OS. It seems it should read something more like "Every platform with an ANSI C compiler that GObject supports. Vala generates C code that depends on GObject." Or since GObject is usually dependent on GLib, perhaps it should read GLib instead of GObject... Any comments on this?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.127.184.24 (talk) 08:02, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. According to the manual, "[GLib] works on many UNIX-like platforms, Windows, OS/2 and BeOS"—while that covers a huge chunk of OS's ("UNIX-like" includes IRIX, Solaris, OSX, BSDs, GNU/Linux, &c), I'd bet there's a system somewhere in the world with a working ANSI C compiler that won't build GLib. I think the description should be something like "Every platform supported by GLib." 24.243.3.27 (talk) 03:08, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Supported OS? 

message: What's the origin of the name "Vala"? I can think of several candidates... Arny (talk) 00:26, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name? 

message: I'm sorry for such drastic petition, but a programming language is characterized mainly by it's syntax and semantics.
Not by examples of how to code the classic Hello World! in different styles.
The object oriented example is very ill constructed, 
the line:
 
    stdout.printf("hello world!\n");
 
means that stdout, which is an instance of the streams class, which is capable to process the printf("hello world!\n") message. 
It is too artificial to embed it in a class called sample, as was done in the article. 
I came to this article trying to understand a free software source which includes modules with the .vala extension.
But this article says no substantial thing about such language.  
What is it's advantage compared with plain C or C++, if I only see some complicated examples.
The article could start with an informal, or should I said semi-formal description of Vala syntax, maybe comparing it with C and C++. From which it seems to be inspired.
Then the formal syntax rules of the language (in BNF or similar) or at least a pointer to the official definition.
Then give some important semantic features, like differences in meaning of statements with the same syntax in C or C++ and Vala.
I do not expect a formal (operational) semantics, for vala, as the vast of those new languages are not developed on such formal basis, but as variants or little improvements of other languages, like C/C++.
Neither I do expect from it to include all the semantics of the language in an encyclopedia article, but some important features at least.
The present article mentions the capability to write anonymous functions, which seems interesting.
I may be developed saying for example:
Why is important to have anonymous functions? How are they written? Are they really useful? I can define them, but can I generate them?
In plain ANSI C one can use function pointers, but one can not create functions on the fly, (technically speaking: it is not a higher order language). There are some forms to overload functions, and that is why it is an interesting feature. Of course overloading methods is more natural in OO languages like C++.  Can you say something like that in the Vala article? 
How about recursion, iteration oriented languages, are not good to implement recursive functions, because as part of semantics, each time a function is called information to return is stored in a stack (see about the heap) which may be too small to be useful in practice. But self calling functions can be transformed in several ways to avoid such problem. Can you say something about this issue in Vala?
I hope that I have been clear with the idea of how an article like this about a programming language Vala, may be structured.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.178.72.176 (talk) 02:54, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  A new Vala article is needed! 

message: —wi24rd leave a comment 17:32, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: You can do this yourself by simply editing the page. --mjog (talk) 00:45, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please update the release version. 

message: The current Vala versions are 0.46.9 (Stable) and 0.48.5 (LTS), both released on April 23, 2020. How can the infobox indicate there is a long-term support release? Kiamlaluno (talk) 11:57, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  How should the infobox indicate there is a LTS version?