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"A desktop environment does not need its own language ..." I'm unsure that I agree. Given that part of Vala's raison d'être was interoperability with C and that
by nrr 2y ago
"A desktop environment does not need its own language ..." I'm unsure that I agree. Given that part of Vala's raison d'être was interoperability with C and that it integrated well with the parts of the desktop environment that made it a desktop environment (i.e., the gadget toolkit and the accompanying services), if I wrote GNOME (Gnome these days?) applications, I'd probably be fine writing the UI in Vala and the rest of my logic in something that, at a minimum, spoke the C ABI.
Likewise, I used to write Windows software in Pascal with parts in C and C++ because I oddly both found Win32 and COM and found interfacing with third-party libraries easier to deal with that way.
- silisili 2y agoThese are kinda ergonomic decisions, though, and a whole new language really isn't necessary for that. You could do that by making a fantastic library for another language/languages. I'd point to PyQT as an example. It's function and documentation are flawless. I was able to build an entire web browser using it in a day(no, not a chrome competitor, just a simple one using QT and webkit components). The 'official' libraries are so clumsy in comparison.
- nrr 2y agoMy argument is exactly about the ergonomics. If the goal is to target Gnome in particular and take advantage of C interoperability (ideally, without the overhead of a foreign function interface), Vala seems like a solidly ergonomic solution to that problem.