Gee 0.8.0 released

Together with Vala 0.18.0, the Vala collections library has also released the major 0.8.0 version, due to changes to the ABI.

Changes

• Fix Traversable.chop (bug #684348)
• Remove unnecessary method
• Update README
• Move everything to GenericAccessor

For more information and downloads see the Gee homepage.

Vala 0.18.0 released

The new stable branch of the Vala programming language has reached the 0.18.x version. There are major fixes and enhancements since the 0.16.x that are described below.

Changes since 0.16.0

• Add libgnome-menu-3.0, gstreamer-1.0 core, gst-plugins-base-1.0, gobject-introspection-1.0 bindings.
• Support subclassing of GLib.Source.
• Switch pango bindings to .gir.
• Warn when accessing static members with an instance reference.
• Recompute length when casting between array types. 
• Support [GenericAccessors] attribute for interfaces.
• Deprecate implicit .begin for async methods.
• Drop Dova and POSIX profile.
• Require and target GLib >= 2.18.
• Support async creation methods.
• Improve assertion messages.
• Add --enable-gobject-tracing commandline option. 
• Support simple method-level profiling.
• Add VALA_CHECK_MODULES and VALA_PROG_VAPIGEN to vala.m4.
• Bug fixes and binding updates.

The [GenericAccessors] attribute allows using generics in interface methods. Before this change, it was impossible to access the generics information of a subclass from within an interface method. Adding this attribute on top of an interface will autogenerate virtual methods at the C level that are automatically implemented by subclasses. It must be noted that using this feature on an existing interface will break the ABI.

The method-level profiling is enabled by adding the [Profile] attribute on top of your methods. When your application terminates, some stats will be printed to the output.

For more information and download see the Vala homepage.

Vala bundle for Windows

Hi,
tarnyko contributed an unofficial Vala bundle containing Vala 0.12.0 and GTK+ 3.4.2 for Windows XP/Vista/7.
This one contains GTK+ 2.20.0, too, so you can still compile older GTK+ programs without modification.
Download here :
http://www.tarnyko.net/en/?q=node/1
or here :
http://www.tarnyko.net/dl/vala.htm

For ValaWinPKG users, the corresponding repository has been uploaded. A few notes:

• you should definitely update the program (here: http://www.tarnyko.net/dl/valawinpkg.htm) because 0.9b is broken with this bundl; 
• newer GLib allows use to have a Clutter package 
• newer GLib, however, gives problems with older LibGee and WebKit, so they've been removed from this new repo (should only be temporary);
• LibMX package is planned.

Final note:
A Vala 0.16.0 for Win32 bundle is WIP. It already works, only needs a few tweaks before uploading.

Original discussion here: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/vala-list/2012-September/msg00065.html