[人] Ren - The Human Notation
Ren is a lightweight data-exchange text format. It is programming language independent with familiar conventions. Whitespace separates values, but is not significant beyond that.
These data structures are the lowest common denominator in modern programming languages. It could be argued—and we did—that only list is needed, but map is used so widely that it was deemed an important element. You can, of course, use only lists in Ren and interpret them as maps as you see fit.
A list is an ordered group of values. A list begins with [ (left square bracket) and ends with ] (right square bracket) or begins with ( (left paren) and ends with ) (right paren). Values are separated by whitespace.
A map is an unordered set of name/value pairs. A map begins with #( (hash)(left paren) and ends with ) (right paren). The first element in a map must be a name. Names end with : (colon)(whitespace) and the name/value pairs are separated by whitespace. A map is just a list, identified by the fact that the first element is a name, and it must always contain an even number of values. That is, each name must have an associated value.
