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+# Introduction
+
+This document outlines the principles that drive the development of ChaiScript. ChaiScript does not intent to be the perfect tool for *every* situation, but it does intend to be a good general purpose tool for *most* situations.
+
+# Goals
+
+1. Trivially easy to integrate with C++ projects
+2. 0 external depenencies
+3. "Perfect" integration with C++
+   * Direct mapping between ChaiScript objects and C++ objects
+   * Direct mapping between ChaiScript functions and C++ functions
+   * Direct mapping between ChaiScript exceptions and C++ exceptions
+3. Never surprise the C++ developer
+   * Object lifetimes managed by the stack
+   * Familiar syntax to C++ developers
+4. Perform "well enough" to not get in the way
+
+
+# Alternatives
+
+## Sol2
+
+If you are looking for the fastest performing scripting language and don't mind Lua, you might want to consider [sol2](https://github.com/ThePhD/sol2).
+
+## SWIG
+
+If you are looking for the most flexible solution to be able to support multiple target languages, consider [SWIG](http://swig.org)
+