Vala0.40.6

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 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.