At last week's Guadec meeting, Kristian Rietveld delivered the GTK+ "state of the union" report. GTK+ is the multi-platform toolkit behind a number of popular applications and, perhaps most well known, the Gnome Desktop environment for Linux. Read the full report here.
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Member since:2008-07-14
With Objective C it would not be easy to have bindings for static typed languages. Also the Smalltalk-style syntax doesn't map very well to most other languages.
I think GTK+ 3.0 should be implemented in Vala (at least partially). It's designed for the GObject type system and results in the same ABI as C libraries.
Member since:2005-08-31
Member since:2008-07-14
Vala code does not only compile to GObject/C libraries, the compiler also will create interface files for GObjectIntrospection, which can be used for example from Python to bind GObject libraries at runtime:
http://blogs.gnome.org/johan/2007/11/30/future-of-gnome-language-bi...
Member since:2005-08-12
Nicer to look at? You're kidding, right? 
It takes two of the ugliest known languages known to man and mashes them together.
They each have features the other doesn't, they both have things one does better than the other. Speaking as a C++ programmer, there are many things I can't live without, and while I realize the same may be true for an Objective-C programmer, my side wins because there are by far more stubborn C++ programmers. :-D
Member since:2008-07-14
It takes two of the ugliest known languages known to man and mashes them together. I totally disagree that Smalltalk is an ugly language. It's actually one of the best and most beautiful programming languages together with LISP. But I wouldn't want to see it mixed with C code. And Objective C has no blocks/closures, which actually are one of the most important features of Smalltalk.
Edited 2008-07-14 16:03 UTC
Member since:2006-05-09
What about Vala?
What about written a real Vala compiler that receives as input a Vala source code and outputs a binary GTK+ compliant?
Vala is a very nice programming language and is GTK+ centric, so will model everything à la GTK+... no wrappers, idioms or verbosity needed.
Member since:2008-07-14
What about written a real Vala compiler that receives as input a Vala source code and outputs a binary GTK+ compliant?
Would be possible, but the current solution with C as an intermediate language has the advantage that you get all C compiler optimizations for free. And it is possible to distribute the generated C source along with the source tarball. So if someone wants to compile the application for his platform he wouldn't even need the Vala compiler.
Using C as an intermediate language for compiling is not uncommon. For example Eiffel does this, too.
Actually it's GLib centric.
You can write object oriented applications without any GTK+.
Member since:2005-07-06
What about Lua - http://www.lua.org
I'm also a c++ programmer, but i kind of like Lua for some reason, it just seems right.
Member since:
2005-07-06
I know this sounds stupid, but why not Objective-C? I've looked through it, and its a damn site nicer to use and look at than C++. Its well supported and developed for, increasing numbers are taking an interest in it as the user base grows.
Right now Objective-C 2.0 brings garbage collection and many other features. I know it'll take a while, but compared to C++, its the lesser of two evils at the moment.