I've noticed this too - both the absence and the success. As I understand it Vala gets compiled to C, so maybe that's why HNers don't like it - because it is an incremental improvement over something older and less sexy. I hope I'm wrong about that!
I for one will try picking up some Vala this year. Who is with me?
It's subsumed under the general GTK antipathy.
At the beginning a lot of Vala momentum was "we like C#, but not MS C#", so it was anti-Mono. I'm glad it's there and integrates nicely with glib/gtk.
Compile to C is perfectly fine. I have not seen anyone really bash that architecture.
Me neither, but I also haven't seen anyone very enthused by it either
Nim’s primary target is C and it gets a lot of love on HN.
Nim compiles to C and it's been largely well received by HN (from what I've read anyway).
when i had an n900 phone vala was the perfect language to write quick gui apps for my own use. i think these days D or zig capture a lot of the same feel while being more capable languages, though it's nice to see vala still going strong.
Elementary OS was basically all Vala for their custom desktop apps, back in the day. I’ve not kept up with it, but it was a nice environment back when I used it!
I believe it's still Vala.
I have been curious about the Genie alternative syntax but it is hard to find doc about it.