Vala is an object-oriented programming language with a self-hosting compiler that generates C code and uses the GObject system.
Vala combines the high-level build-time performance of scripting languages with the run-time performance of low-level programming languages.
Vala is syntactically similar to C# and includes notable features such as anonymous functions, signals, properties, generics, assisted memory management, exception handling, type inference, and foreach statements.
Its developers, Jürg Billeter and Raffaele Sandrini, wanted to bring these features to the plain C runtime with little overhead and no special runtime support by targeting the GObject object system. Rather than compiling directly to machine code or assembly language, it compiles to a lower-level intermediate language. It source-to-source compiles to C, which is then compiled with a C compiler for a given platform, such as GCC.
Did you always want to write GTK+ or GNOME programs, but hate C with a passion? Learn Vala with these free tutorials!
Vala is published under the GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1+.
1. Vala Tutorial by GNOME
This tutorial doesn’t go into depth about basic programming practices. It only briefly explains the principles of object-oriented programming, instead focusing on how Vala applies the concepts. As such it will be helpful if you have experience of a variety of programming languages already, although in-depth knowledge of any particular one is not required.
Vala shares a lot of syntax with C#, but the author seeks to avoid describing features in terms of their similarity or differences with either C# or Java, with the aim of making the tutorial more accessible.
2. Tutorial for beginners and code samples by GNOME
By following these tutorials you will learn the basics of GUI programming using GTK+. You should have thoroughly understood the previous tutorial before embarking on this series.
3. Learn Vala in Y minutes by Milo Gilad
In GNOME’s own words, “Vala is a 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.”
Vala has aspects of Java and C#, so it’ll be natural to those who know either.
4. Gtk+ Kick-Start Tutorial for Vala by Alberto Ruiz
This is an eight minute video showing you how to create a simple GTK+ application using the Vala programming language.
5. Vala Language Introduction by Andre Masella
This video provides an overview of the Vala programming language given to co-workers.
6. Create an ElementaryOS app with GTK & Vala! by Egee
This is a two part tutorial on how to make an ElementaryOS app using GTK and Vala.
7. Learn Vala and Gtk+ from Scratch by Alessandro Castellani
A series of 13 short videos that explain how to build native Linux Applications – Learn Vala and Gtk+ from Scratch.
8. Vala for C# Programmers by GNOME
This page describes the syntax differences, not the similarities between Vala and C#. It is intended to be a quick introduction to Vala for programmers who already know C#.
9. Vala for Java Programmers by GNOME
This page describes the syntax differences, not the similarities between Vala and Java. It is intended to be a quick introduction to Vala for programmers who already know Java.
All tutorials in this series:
| Free Programming Tutorials | |
|---|---|
| ABAP | Advanced Business Application Programming |
| Ada | ALGOL-like programming language, extended from Pascal and others |
| Agda | Dependently typed functional language based on intuitionistic type theory |
| Alice | Educational language with an integrated development environment |
| Arduino | Inexpensive, flexible, open source microcontroller platform |
| Assembly | As close to writing machine code without writing in pure hexadecimal |
| Awk | Versatile language designed for pattern scanning and processing |
| Bash | ‘Bourne-Again-SHell’ is both a shell and programming language |
| BASIC | Family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages |
| C | General-purpose, procedural, portable, high-level language |
| C++ | General-purpose, portable, free-form, multi-paradigm language |
| C# | Combines the power and flexibility of C++ with the simplicity of Visual Basic |
| Chapel | Parallel-programming language in development at Cray Inc. |
| Clojure | Dialect of the Lisp programming language |
| ClojureScript | Compiler for Clojure that targets JavaScript |
| COBOL | Common Business-Oriented Language |
| CoffeeScript | A very succinct programming language that transcompiles into JavaScript |
| Coq | Dependently typed language similar to Agda, Idris, F*, Lean, and others |
| Crystal | General-purpose, concurrent, multi-paradigm, object-oriented language |
| CSS | CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) specifies a web page’s appearance |
| D | General-purpose systems programming language with a C-like syntax |
| Dart | Client-optimized programming language for fast apps |
| Dylan | Multi-paradigm language, supports functional & object-oriented programming |
| ECMAScript | Best known as the language embedded in web browsers |
| Eiffel | Object-oriented language |
| Elixir | Relatively new functional language that runs on the Erlang virtual machine |
| Elm | Functional language that compiles to JavaScript |
| Emacs Lisp | A dialect of the Lisp programming language. |
| Erlang | General-purpose, concurrent, declarative, functional language |
| F# | General purpose, strongly typed, multi-paradigm language. Part of ML |
| Factor | Dynamic stack-based language |
| Forth | Imperative stack-based programming language |
| Fortran | The first high-level language, using the first compiler |
| Go | Compiled, statically typed programming language |
| Groovy | Powerful, optionally typed and dynamic language |
| Hack | For the HipHop Virtual Machine (HHVM), created as a dialect of PHP |
| Haml | HTML Abstraction Markup Language |
| Haskell | Standardized, general-purpose, polymorphically, statically typed language |
| HTML | HyperText Markup Language |
| Icon | High-level, general-purpose language |
| Imba | Full-stack language that compiles to performant JavaScript |
| J | Array programming language based primarily on APL |
| Java | General-purpose, concurrent, class-based, object-oriented, high-level language |
| JavaScript | Interpreted, prototype-based, scripting language |
| Julia | High-level, high-performance language for technical computing |
| Kotlin | Statically typed, general-purpose programming language with type inference |
| LabVIEW | Designed to enable domain experts to build power systems quickly |
| LaTeX | Professional document preparation system and document markup language |
| Less | Backwards-compatible language extension for Cascading Style Sheets |
| Limbo | Designed for applications running distributed systems on small computers |
| Lisp | Unique features - excellent to study programming constructs |
| Logo | Dialect of Lisp that features interactivity, modularity, extensibility |
| Lua | Designed as an embeddable scripting language |
| Markdown | Plain text formatting syntax designed to be easy-to-read and easy-to-write |
| Nim | Statically typed compiled systems language with syntax resembling Python |
| Objective-C | General purpose language which is a superset of C |
| OCaml | General-purpose, powerful, high-level language |
| Octave | High-level language, primarily intended for numerical computations |
| OpenCL | Open Computing Language |
| Pascal | Imperative and procedural language designed in the late 1960s |
| Perl | High-level, general-purpose, interpreted, scripting, dynamic language |
| Pike | Interpreted, general-purpose, high-level, cross-platform, dynamic language |
| PHP | PHP has been at the helm of the web for many years |
| Pony | Pony is an actor-model, capabilities-secure, high-performance language |
| PostScript | Page description language in electronic and desktop publishing |
| Prolog | General purpose, declarative, logic programming language |
| PureScript | Small strongly, statically typed language with expressive types |
| Python | General-purpose, structured, powerful language |
| QML | Hierarchical declarative language for user interface layout with a syntax to JSON |
| R | De facto standard among statisticians and data analysts |
| Racket | Platform for programming language design and implementation |
| Raku | Member of the Perl family of programming languages |
| Ruby | General purpose, scripting, structured, flexible, fully object-oriented language |
| Rust | Ideal for systems, embedded, and other performance critical code |
| Scala | Modern, object-functional, multi-paradigm, Java-based language |
| Scheme | General-purpose, functional, language descended from Lisp and Algol |
| Scratch | Visual programming language designed for 8-16 year-old children |
| Solidity | Object-oriented, high-level language for implementing smart contracts |
| SQL | Access and manipulate data held in a relational database management system |
| Standard ML | One of the two main dialects of the ML language |
| Swift | Powerful and intuitive general-purpose programming language |
| Tcl | Dynamic language based on concepts of Lisp, C, and Unix shells |
| TypeScript | Strict syntactical superset of JavaScript, adding optional static typing |
| V | Statically typed compiled language to build maintainable software |
| Vala | Object-oriented language with a self-hosting compiler that generates C code |
| VHDL | Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language |
| VimL | Powerful scripting language of the Vim editor |
| XML | Set of rules for defining semantic tags that describe the structure and meaning |