Purpose of this presentation ● Describes the Ballerina programming language ● Applies to 2021 version of Ballerina ("Swan Lake") ● Covers all significant features ● Ballerina is a comprehensive platform, including extensive libraries: this presentation is only about the language ● Intended for experienced programmers, familiar with at least one C family language ○ C, C++, Java, JavaScript, C#, TypeScript ○ also assume familiarity with static typing: so not just JavaScript ● Ballerina Language Specification is more precise and detailed, but harder to understand