LuaTeX offers a lot of new things. Having talked about desirable features in a TeX successor in the past, I’ll try seeing how well LuaTeX matches with the feature set envisioned at that time, and what areas remain completely or partly uncovered.
In a second part, I’ll be taking a look at what LuaTeX might mean from a software engineering viewpoint: traditionally TeX wizards and the necessary focus are a sparse resource. In a large XML–focused typesetting project like QuinScape’s DocScape Publisher, LuaTeX offers approaches where a much larger ratio of the total software base is accessible to more conventional programmers, making it possible to solve more (and more complex) tasks with less TeX expertise than previously required.