README

Kamby Language
==============
Kamby is a programming language that transpiles to Scheme. It introduces
syntactic sugar and conventions to reduce the heavy use of parentheses,
which is typical in Lisp dialects.

Conventions
-----------
- The document implicitly starts with an opening `(`.
- The end of the document automatically closes any open blocks.
- Lines are terminated with `;`, which internally closes a block with
  `)` and starts a new one with `(`.
- Lists are declared using `[` and `]`.
- Sequencing blocks (equivalent to `(begin ...)`) are declared using `{`
  and `}`.
- Logical and mathematical operators are placed as the second item in an
  expression (e.g., `2 + 2` becomes `(+ 2 2)`).
- Variables are declared with `var key` or `var key = value`.
- Variables are modified with `key = value`.
- Functions are declared with `func name(args) { ... }`.

Example
-------

  var name = "Kamby";
  name = "Kamby Language";

  func hello(who age) {
    print "Hello, " who "!";
    print "You are " age " years old.";
  }

  hello name (3 + 1);

Behind the scenes
-----------------
Kamby is both a transpiler and an evaluator. It converts Kamby code into
Scheme, so once you understand the syntax, you can leverage the full
power of Scheme.

To maximize compatibility with various Scheme implementations, Kamby
reads input from `stdin`.

The current implementation supports R5RS, R6RS, and R7RS standards,
making it compatible with major Scheme implementations like Chicken,
Chibi, Gambit, Guile, and Chez. The `include-script` directive works
like `include`, but is only available in R6RS.

Usage
-----
$ scheme --script kamby.scm < example.ka  # Chez Scheme
$ csi -s kamby.scm < example.ka           # Chicken Scheme
$ gsi kamby.scm < example.ka              # Gambit Scheme
$ guile kamby.scm < example.ka            # Guile Scheme

License
-------
MIT