More README

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@@ -6,14 +6,24 @@ This repo is intended to demonstrate the Sea-of-Nodes compiler IR.
 The Sea-of-Nodes is the core IR inside of HotSpot's C2 compiler
 and Google's V8 compiler and Sun/Oracle's Graal compiler.
 
-Since we are show casing the SoN IR, the *language* being implemented is less important.
-We're using a very simple language similar to C or Java, but with far fewer features.
+Since we are show casing the SoN IR, the *language* being implemented is less
+important.  We're using a very simple language similar to C or Java, but with
+far fewer features.  Simple is strongly typed, object-oriented, with first-
+class *functions* not *closures*.  Object references are pointers, and null
+pointer exceptions are disallowed by the typing system.  Arrays will probably
+be range-checked at some point, making Simple a fully safe language.  Simple
+has a minimal syntax that can be parsed with a recursive descent parser.
+
 The Sea-of-Nodes is used for machine code generation in these industrial
-strength systems - but for this demonstration the backend is both difficult
-and less important.
+strength systems - but for this demonstration the backend is both difficult and
+less important.  This repo will eventually target X86 and at least one more
+machine with ahead-of-time compilation - but with an eye to JIT compilation.
+
+This repo also is not intended to be a complete language in any sense, and so
+the backend starts with levering Java: the Evaluator (first appears in Chapter
+10) directly slowly interprets the SoN IR.  Code-gen first appears in Chapter
+19.
 
-This repo also is not intended to be a complete language in any sense,
-and so the backend will probably start with levering C or Java.
 
 ## Chapters