1. A computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions for providing a language processing environment, said instructions comprising instructions for: providing at least one handle base class available for subclassing by users of the language processing environment; receiving a definition of at least one handle subclass created by subclassing the at least one handle base class; providing a single syntax for defining all classes including handle classes and non-handle classes; and storing in memory an object corresponding to an instance of the at least one handle subclass.