updated with sassier introduction
# Timely Dataflow #
-Timely dataflow is a low-latency cyclic dataflow computational model, introduced in the paper [Naiad: a timely dataflow system](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2522738).
-This project is an extended and more modular implementation of timely dataflow in Rust.
+Timely dataflow is a low-latency cyclic dataflow computational model, introduced in the paper [Naiad: a timely dataflow system](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2522738). This project is an extended and more modular implementation of timely dataflow in Rust.
+
+This project is something akin to a distributed data-parallel compute engine, which scales the same program up from a single thread on your laptop to distributed execution across a cluster of computers. The main goals are expressive power and high performance. Statistically speaking it is probably strictly more expressive and faster than whatever you are currently using. I can say "strictly more" because statistically speaking you probably aren't using timely dataflow yet.
Be sure to read the [documentation for timely dataflow](http://frankmcsherry.github.io/timely-dataflow). It is a work in progress, but mostly improving.
