I finally rewrote a program (previously wrote in C) in the python language. I like it, mainly for it's well documented API and the way we can have both the functionnal and object language style. I took to me less than 12 hours to complete the program i made in 3 days of C, having not any knowledge of Python but a book. I'ts really cool.

after about 8 years of C and bourne, i finally decided to learn a descent language. and by learn, i mean learn from the beginning, as a baby. making things clean, trying to forget crappy things i made in the past. So, i decided to choose vala for testing my fresh baby brain. This first post on vala is be the beginning of a step by step introduction to this language for people who know C or C++.

first, read This Hello World in Vala

Here is a variant, which goal is to demonstrate how to use program's arguments, and how to get an array's length:

using GLib;
public class Tutorial.CommandLineArgs : GLib.Object {
 public static void main(string[] args) {
  for (uint i=1; i< args.length; i++)
   stdout.printf("Hello, %s. ",args[i]);
  stdout.printf("My name is %s\n", args[0]);
 }
}


Here you see the declaration of an array of strings which i called args, another declaration: an unsigned integer variable named i. Then you see the length member of the array type. Finally you see how to acces to an array's cell.

Question from the baby: how to get the real basename of args[0], having knowledge of basename() from <libgen.h> or g_path_get_basename() from GLib ? Reply: to acces g_path_get_basename() from GLib, Vala has this naming convetion: GLib.Path.get_basename(). Now it's up to you to make a better hello people program.

After the succcessful vserver experience for virtualizing asterisks and freepbx, i am now switching to the VPS technology provided by Positive software. The advantage is mainly that they provide a web interface to generete guest OSes. The cons is that it is not free for commercial purposes. see you later for more infos.

After playing whith GLADE for Gtk+ apps i still think xhtml is the easyest way to set up a quick form based graphial interface. So i am looking for a HTML to Glade converter or somthing like that. years ago I heard the XFroms would appear in several years since it is an W3C proposal. But anyway... we are still waiting. So, why just not simply extend xhtml for form based apps ? you know, many new widgets would be useful, like:

<date>01/01/1970</date>
<knob start="0" end="100"></>
<slider pos="vertical" start="0", end="100"></>
<menu class="main">
<item action="edit.php" target="new" >Edit</entry>
<item action="prefs.php"
target="new">Preferences</entry>
</menu>

i'm on making asterisk boxes inside linux virtual servers. Frank told about the linux vserver patch and.. wow this is really nice and simple to use. I installed a fresh etch into my old p500 and installed the vserver kernel from etch.. simple. now here are the commands to create a full-featured vserver guest having a debian etch:

# uname -a
linux-image-vserver-686 blah...
# apt-get install util-vserver
[...]
# vserver server1 build -m debootstrap -- -d etch
[coffe men...]
# vserver server1 start
[see init process]
# vserver server1 enter
#_