The Bistro programming language

Programming language

A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....

 is object oriented, dynamically typed, and reflective

Reflection (computer science)

In computer science, reflection is the process by which a computer program can observe and modify its own structure and behavior at runtime....

. It is intended to integrate features of Smalltalk

Smalltalk

Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. Smalltalk was created as the language to underpin the "new world" of computing exemplified by "human–computer symbiosis." It was designed and created in part for educational use, more so for constructionist...

 and Java

Java (programming language)

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...

, running as a variant of Smalltalk that runs atop any Java virtual machine

Virtual machine

A virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". Modern virtual machines are implemented with either software emulation or hardware virtualization or both together.-VM Definitions:A virtual machine is a software...

 conforming to Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

' Java specification. There were no new developments with Bistro since 2002 .

Bistro duplicates the vast majority of the syntax and API for Smalltalk

Smalltalk

Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. Smalltalk was created as the language to underpin the "new world" of computing exemplified by "human–computer symbiosis." It was designed and created in part for educational use, more so for constructionist...

, and introduces the package and import concepts from Java. Overloaded operator

Operator overloading

In object oriented computer programming, operator overloading—less commonly known as operator ad-hoc polymorphism—is a specific case of polymorphism, where different operators have different implementations depending on their arguments...

s are available for certain operators; ++ and -- are not available overloaded operators.

The syntax for declaring a class's package and import clauses are:

package: my.package.subpackage;

import: my.package.MyClass;

import: my.package.*;

One notable exclusion is the ability to import static methods from other classes.