Hello Patrick who said...
Besides the gdb part, this is pretty much how I "learned" LuaTeX (still on my path). I suggest you stay with plain, then add features as you go along:
* write your own font handler (see the bluewiki page) - LuaTeX supports many different kinds of fonts * write your own kpathsea module (and thus replace kpathsea) * do a nodelist traversal and find out about the different node types * create a nodelist and write it out to TeX (node.write(...)) * use tex.linebreak() for creating a paragraph. ...
Good to know that I'm not the only one going down the "simple" path. My plans are indeed along the lines you indicate. I have the utmost admiration and respect for the work that has gone into ConTeXt, a great piece of work. For now, I just need to get back to the "very basics" and a minimal installation of LuaTeX with plain seems to do that nicely, for now.
If you understand german or use google translate, have a look at
Sadly, I do not read German, a real pity as there are some interesting bits of code on there. Google Translate, here I come.... :-) Warm regards and thanks again for your time to reply. Cheers! Graham