The entire principle of the Rapture suite is to provide a framework in which a multi-user virtual environment can be easily created while maintaining the utmost in performance. The Rapture language provides all the normal functionality of a programming language while also including many constructs and abstractions for mechanisms which are normally not (such as a networking server and database access). By abstracting and providing a clear interface to some of the more complex back-end systems, development time and effort can be concentrated on the actual mechanics and logic of the environment being created.
Historically, Rapture has evolved from a few previous languages each providing some more functionality to the overall design, however, the main emphasis has always been on speed and stability. To this end, many ‘features’ of modern programming and scripting languages are not present. Rapture is not object-oriented nor is it (currently) runtime mutable and extensible through libraries and plugins. Rapture is built for speed and stability.
Traditionally, Rapture has been used to create large scale multi-user games (MUDs) in which text is the primary interface. However, the structure of Rapture is general enough to allow development of various different projects. For instance, an interactive chat system was developed in conjunction with a United Nations affiliated organization. It is obvious that the applications of Rapture are vastly farther reaching than the goals in the initial design. It is merely a tool, use it as your will and imagination let you.