# Introduction Sophia is a functional language designed for smart contract development. It is strongly typed and has\ restricted mutable state. Sophia is customized for smart contracts, which can be published\ to a blockchain. Thus some features of conventional\ languages, such as floating point arithmetic, are not present in Sophia, and\ some [æternity blockchain](https://aeternity.com) specific primitives, constructions and types have been added. !!! Note\ \- For rapid prototyping of smart contracts check out [AEstudio](https://studio.aepps.com/)!\ \- For playing around and diving deeper into the language itself check out the [REPL](https://repl.aeternity.io/)! --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.aeternity.com/developer-documentation/aesophia/docs/index.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.