Introducing Vala Programming: A Language and Techniques to Boost Productivity

by Michael Lauer

Overview

Get an introduction into the Vala programming language and learn about its syntax, semantics, and idioms. Do you want to boost your productivity? Are you interested in a programming language that combines the efficiency of a scripting language with the performance of a compiled language? Did you always want to write GTK+ or GNOME programs, but hate C with a passion? Read this book and learn Vala!

Introducing Vala Programming starts from Hello World and goes up to graphical user interfaces using GTK+, covering DBus interprocess communication, network programming, Linux specifics, and more. You’ll learn how to leverage external libraries and enhance Vala by writing bindings to new libraries.

What You Will Learn

• Discover the Vala programming language and how to use it to boost your productivity
• Use Vala syntax and semantics
• Write object-oriented code with Vala
• Work with DBus
• Implement networking with Vala
• Integrate and use external libraries with bindings and libgusb

Who This Book Is For

People with basic programming experience in any imperative programming language.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781484253793
Publisher:	Apress
Publication date:	11/07/2019
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	242
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dr. Michael 'Mickey' Lauer is a freelance software architect and author living in Neu-Isenburg, Germany. He is a free software enthusiast who enjoys solving problems with mobile and distributed systems. Learn more on his personal website.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Why Vala?
A brief take on history
A personal note
Audience
Overview
Typographical Conventions
Source codeChangeLog
About the author
Getting Started
Installing
Hello World
Hello Object-World
Hello GUI-World
Summary
Syntax & Semantics
Basic Rules
The Type System
Operators
Control Flow
Methods
Attributes
Memory Management
Structured Error Handling
Method Contracts
Summary
Object Oriented Programming
Concepts
Classes
Interfaces
OOP and the Type System
Generics
Classes vs. Structures
Summary
Networking
Sockets
Example: NTP Client
JSON
Example: JSON Parser
GIOExample: HTTP Client with GIO
libsoup
Example: HTTP Client with libsoup
Summary
UI programming with GTK+
Event-Driven Systems
GTK+
Example: Streaming Radio Client
Summary
DBus
Introduction
DBus in Vala
Example: DBus Server
Example: DBus Client
Summary
Linux
Introduction
Linux.vapi
File Notification
Example: inotifyWatcher
Summary
External Libraries
Bindings
Example: Binding libxmp
Example: Binding a GObject-based library
Example: Using libgusb
Summary
Epilogue
Congratulations
Contribute
Closing
Notes