[luatex] The LuaTeXbook

[Luis Rivera]

What about a "LuaTeX for the Impatient"? Personally, I had my real
first grasp at the depths of (La)TeX by browsing through Abrahams,
Hargreaves, and Berry's "TeX for the Impatient". It is not a
comprehensive reference (the TeXbook), or a detailed description (TeX
by Topic), and it doesn't pretend to replace the tons of documentation
for each individual macro package: it is rather a "manual", both an
introduction and a quick reference book, without going too much into
the details.

It would be enlightening to see how LuaTeX solves some of the
difficult problems posed by The Impatient without performing the some
of the weird somersaults required by TeX macros. It wouldn't be
necessary to explain Lua (or Metapost) programming into much detail:
just enough to get the jobs done. A first version in a wiki, simply
filling in the blanks of the original Impatient, or providing
alternative solutions in Lua instead of complicated TeX macros, would
do the trick. Besides, the current WikiMedia software could produce
the required PDF "book" out of the box.

My penny thoughts,

-- 
Luis Rivera
O< http://www.asciiribbon.org/ campaign