You have some very ambitious ideas in there Robert. As I said, I would keep it simple to start with. Something that lets you select a script, schedule it, and run it. Believe me, an efficient scheduling system is not as trivial as it sounds . The threading system should be next. Then the rest of your stuff.

You will find (as you read more) that the io library already has almost everything you need to execute a full tree walk (in Linux, Windows and MAC)!

As for ECXML, its a very good component, but please remember that its over 10 years old (believe it or not). I haven't updated it in quite some time, as there are other things on my plate taking priority. The newer version, for FPC, is still in early beta and has a few bugs. Though, its my choice any more . Also, you will find that there are ALOT of good libraries for parsing XML in Lua (that way your config file is actually read by a script that can be customized by any user). Of course thats up to you.

For the persistence thing, here is a quick example:
[pascal]var Lua : TLua;
begin
Lua := TLua.Create;
Lua.LoadScript('a = 0'#13#10'function Test()'#13#10'print(a.."\n")'#13#10'a=a+1'#13#10'e nd'#13#10'Test()');
Lua.Execute;
Lua.CallFunction('Test')
Lua.CallFunction('Test')
Lua.Free;
end[/pascal]

Output:
Code:
0
1
2
If you called .Execute instead of .CallFunction then you would see the output as 0, 0, 0. Of course, if you did a nil test then an assignment and used .Execute you would get 0, 1, 2 as the Lua State is never closed. You will learn more about that as you read PIL.

Personally, I bought PIL 1 and 2. More because I respect the author posting 1 for free then anything. I find reading them online a better option, but I like the feeling that I'm supporting the guy at some level .

Some place on my hard drive I have ALOT of sample code. I'll look around and see if I can find it. If so I'll zip it up and make it available for download for you.

On the subject of the mailing list. You can sign up at:
http://www.lua.org/lua-l.html

Basically, you give it a valid e-mail address and then everyone on the list gets a copy of each others messages that are sent to the list. Its the "Primary form of Support for Lua". There are some really smart people on the list, and I've yet to have a problem getting help when I need it. I'm just now starting to post answers, as I'm just getting to the point that I know enough to answer competently