2 ms·

isn't that rust, but better?

by sylware 4y ago

nwah1 4y ago
It is C# for GNOME people
- deaddodo 4y ago
  This. Honestly, I’ve always felt that Genie was the better GNOME successor to Boo; but Vala has long since become the “de facto” GNOME language.
  - audidude 4y ago
    We're still mostly C in GNOME, so hard to say de-facto by any means.
    - deaddodo 4y ago
      Not de facto as in universally (or even primarily) used. De facto as in "the language of GNOME", i.e. one built for and used by GNOME as a first class citizen.
- audidude 4y ago
  C# for GNOME people was Mono, which was started and incubated in GNOME. Including MonoDevelop, which is now Visual Studio for Mac.
  - None4U 4y ago
    Mono is C#
    - aroman 4y ago
      Mono is much more than just C#. It was created by GNOME folks so they could use .NET to develop GNOME/linux software. In that way, Vala is similar to Mono: they were both created as replacements for using GObject-C to develop desktop Linux softeware. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vala_(programming_language)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vala_(programming_language)#Hi...
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Not quite so literally. But Vala itself is blatantly C#-like syntactically. And if you look at the original combination of C# (circa 2.0) + WinForms, they have the same symbiotic relationship as Vala and Gtk.
  - mhd 4y ago
    And a few people liked the language, but a lot of users complained about the memory bloat this introduced (this was back when people cared about RAM). So Vala is trying to be the best of two worlds, having C-like resource usage with some of the language niceties of C#. Probably wouldn't have happened if Mono didn't prepare the way for C# syntax in the GNOME bubble.
- resoluteteeth 4y ago
  It's almost more like c-flavored visual basic for gnome (based around gobject rather than COM). c# is more of it's own thing whereas visual basic sort of had the same underlying idea of "hey we have this object library that has its own memory allocation primitives and data structures; what if we exposed it as its own language rather than making everyone use it from c/c++"
maxbond 4y ago
I think you're thinking of https://vlang.io/ https://vlang.io/
- dym_sh 4y ago
  no, that's pascal but better
  - maxbond 4y ago
    I've never tried it & have no opinion, but they're often compared, have similar goals, and it's name is mistakable for Vala, so I believe this is what they were asking about.
aikah 4y ago
> isn't that rust, but better? Clearly no, because Vala has a bunch of issues with memory safety. Not because it's a bad language, but since it translates directly to GObject, there is a lot of problems around pointers, ownership, ... mainly because that language lacks maintainers and GTK/Gimp developers didn't like it because they are "C essentialists".
- sylware 4y ago
  "C essentialist" is a line very hard to hold, because C via ISO is moved towards an horrible language like c++ (generic,__thread,etc). So, it is not C anymore, it is simple and lean C which should be the target of an essentialist line of conduct. Whatever, a good new language would first and above all be easier to write a compiler for than simple C.
  - bonzini 4y ago
    __thread is essential for some applications, what's wrong with it?
    - sylware 4y ago
      To access TLS-ized system variables (for instance errno if I really need to, I would use the sysv ABI __tls_get_addr() function). But in the application domain, I would use pthread TLS.
      - bonzini 4y ago
        That's much much slower though.
        sylware 4y ago
        You would have to cache the system TLS address in the application pthread TLS.
        4y ago
JCWasmx86 4y ago
If Vala would have the same number of people working on it, it would be a perfect language probably for the majority of use cases. Faster compiler than rust, smaller binaries, easier syntax, good GUI as defacto library (GTK)
- kaba0 4y ago
  They are not nearly in the same niche, so the comparison doesn’t make sense.
- goodpoint 4y ago
  By that logic Nim would be even better.
  - sylware 4y ago
    better stick to python, or lua or even javascript then, with the right bindings and engin.
nextaccountic 4y ago
I read somewhere that some Gnome (and elementaryOS) people are looking for replacing Vala code with Rust. I can't find the exact place, but this is going on since 2016 at least https://blogs.gnome.org/despinosa/2016/11/01/rust-and-vala/ https://blogs.gnome.org/despinosa/2016/11/01/rust-and-vala/ > Rust is on the horizon and have voices to use it instead Vala And https://siliconislandblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/31/thoughts-on-dx-gnome-and-rust/ https://siliconislandblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/31/thoughts-... Also mentioned here https://elementaryos.stackexchange.com/questions/10664/concern-about-the-future-of-vala https://elementaryos.stackexchange.com/questions/10664/conce... And it turns out that the Rust people eventually came up with nice ways of integrating GObject, starting from 2017 http://smallcultfollowing.com/babysteps/blog/2017/05/02/gnome-class-integrating-rust-and-the-gnome-object-system/ http://smallcultfollowing.com/babysteps/blog/2017/05/02/gnom... And nowadays, gtk4 https://gtk-rs.org/gtk4-rs/git/book/ https://gtk-rs.org/gtk4-rs/git/book/ and relm4 https://aaronerhardt.github.io/relm4-book/book/ https://aaronerhardt.github.io/relm4-book/book/ are pretty cool So I think that today Rust is a more satisfying language to code with, even in the ultra-specific niche of writing stuff with GObject
- colinkiama 4y ago
  As someone who has helped create the new Vala website, this seem a bit weird for me to say but I believe that people should code in whatever they feel that they can be most productive with. If that language is Rust then go for it! However, things can change over time of course.
varjag 4y ago
It's Gnome's Swift.
- socialdemocrat 4y ago
  Hehe or alternative Gnome’s Objective-C. They should have build Gnome from the start to have an object model compatible with Objective-C.

isn't that rust, but better?

nwah1 4y ago

It is C# for GNOME people

deaddodo 4y ago
This. Honestly, I’ve always felt that Genie was the better GNOME successor to Boo; but Vala has long since become the “de facto” GNOME language.
- audidude 4y ago
  We're still mostly C in GNOME, so hard to say de-facto by any means.
  - deaddodo 4y ago
    Not de facto as in universally (or even primarily) used. De facto as in "the language of GNOME", i.e. one built for and used by GNOME as a first class citizen.
audidude 4y ago
C# for GNOME people was Mono, which was started and incubated in GNOME. Including MonoDevelop, which is now Visual Studio for Mac.
- None4U 4y ago
  Mono is C#
  - aroman 4y ago
    Mono is much more than just C#. It was created by GNOME folks so they could use .NET to develop GNOME/linux software. In that way, Vala is similar to Mono: they were both created as replacements for using GObject-C to develop desktop Linux softeware. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vala_(programming_language)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vala_(programming_language)#Hi...
- int_19h 4y ago
  Not quite so literally. But Vala itself is blatantly C#-like syntactically. And if you look at the original combination of C# (circa 2.0) + WinForms, they have the same symbiotic relationship as Vala and Gtk.
- mhd 4y ago
  And a few people liked the language, but a lot of users complained about the memory bloat this introduced (this was back when people cared about RAM). So Vala is trying to be the best of two worlds, having C-like resource usage with some of the language niceties of C#. Probably wouldn't have happened if Mono didn't prepare the way for C# syntax in the GNOME bubble.
resoluteteeth 4y ago
It's almost more like c-flavored visual basic for gnome (based around gobject rather than COM). c# is more of it's own thing whereas visual basic sort of had the same underlying idea of "hey we have this object library that has its own memory allocation primitives and data structures; what if we exposed it as its own language rather than making everyone use it from c/c++"

maxbond 4y ago

I think you're thinking of https://vlang.io/ https://vlang.io/

dym_sh 4y ago
no, that's pascal but better
- maxbond 4y ago
  I've never tried it & have no opinion, but they're often compared, have similar goals, and it's name is mistakable for Vala, so I believe this is what they were asking about.

aikah 4y ago

> isn't that rust, but better? Clearly no, because Vala has a bunch of issues with memory safety. Not because it's a bad language, but since it translates directly to GObject, there is a lot of problems around pointers, ownership, ... mainly because that language lacks maintainers and GTK/Gimp developers didn't like it because they are "C essentialists".

sylware 4y ago
"C essentialist" is a line very hard to hold, because C via ISO is moved towards an horrible language like c++ (generic,__thread,etc). So, it is not C anymore, it is simple and lean C which should be the target of an essentialist line of conduct. Whatever, a good new language would first and above all be easier to write a compiler for than simple C.
- bonzini 4y ago
  __thread is essential for some applications, what's wrong with it?
  - sylware 4y ago
    To access TLS-ized system variables (for instance errno if I really need to, I would use the sysv ABI __tls_get_addr() function). But in the application domain, I would use pthread TLS.
    - bonzini 4y ago
      That's much much slower though.
      - sylware 4y ago
        You would have to cache the system TLS address in the application pthread TLS.
        4y ago

JCWasmx86 4y ago

If Vala would have the same number of people working on it, it would be a perfect language probably for the majority of use cases. Faster compiler than rust, smaller binaries, easier syntax, good GUI as defacto library (GTK)

kaba0 4y ago
They are not nearly in the same niche, so the comparison doesn’t make sense.
goodpoint 4y ago
By that logic Nim would be even better.
- sylware 4y ago
  better stick to python, or lua or even javascript then, with the right bindings and engin.

nextaccountic 4y ago

I read somewhere that some Gnome (and elementaryOS) people are looking for replacing Vala code with Rust. I can't find the exact place, but this is going on since 2016 at least https://blogs.gnome.org/despinosa/2016/11/01/rust-and-vala/ https://blogs.gnome.org/despinosa/2016/11/01/rust-and-vala/ > Rust is on the horizon and have voices to use it instead Vala And https://siliconislandblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/31/thoughts-on-dx-gnome-and-rust/ https://siliconislandblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/31/thoughts-... Also mentioned here https://elementaryos.stackexchange.com/questions/10664/concern-about-the-future-of-vala https://elementaryos.stackexchange.com/questions/10664/conce... And it turns out that the Rust people eventually came up with nice ways of integrating GObject, starting from 2017 http://smallcultfollowing.com/babysteps/blog/2017/05/02/gnome-class-integrating-rust-and-the-gnome-object-system/ http://smallcultfollowing.com/babysteps/blog/2017/05/02/gnom... And nowadays, gtk4 https://gtk-rs.org/gtk4-rs/git/book/ https://gtk-rs.org/gtk4-rs/git/book/ and relm4 https://aaronerhardt.github.io/relm4-book/book/ https://aaronerhardt.github.io/relm4-book/book/ are pretty cool So I think that today Rust is a more satisfying language to code with, even in the ultra-specific niche of writing stuff with GObject

colinkiama 4y ago
As someone who has helped create the new Vala website, this seem a bit weird for me to say but I believe that people should code in whatever they feel that they can be most productive with. If that language is Rust then go for it! However, things can change over time of course.

varjag 4y ago

It's Gnome's Swift.

socialdemocrat 4y ago
Hehe or alternative Gnome’s Objective-C. They should have build Gnome from the start to have an object model compatible with Objective-C.