Lasso

Lasso is an application server and server management interface used to develop internet applications and is a general-purpose, high-level programming language. Originally a web datasource connection tool for Filemaker and later included in Apple Computer's FileMaker 4.0 and Claris Homepage as CDML, it has since evolved into a complex language used to develop and serve large-scale internet applications and web pages. Lasso includes a simple template system allowing code to control generation of HTML and other content types. Lasso is object-oriented and every value is an object. It also supports procedural programming through unbound methods. The language uses traits and multiple dispatch extensively. Lasso has a dynamic type system, where objects can be loaded and augmented at runtime, automatic memory management, a comprehensive standard library, and three compiling methodologies: dynamic (comparable to PHP-Python), just-in-time compilation (comparable to Java or .NET Framework), and pre-compiled (comparable to C). Lasso also supports Query Expressions, allowing elements within arrays and other types of sequences to be iterated, filtered, and manipulated using a natural language syntax similar to SQL. Lasso includes full Unicode character support in the standard string object, allowing it to serve and support multi-byte characters such as Japanese and Swedish, and supports transparent UTF-8 conversion when writing string data to the network or file system. Lasso is often used as a scripting language, and also used in a wide range of non-scripting contexts. Lasso code can be packaged into standalone executable programs called "LassoApps", in which folder structures are compiled into single files.