I wrote a console-based email-client, using Lua for all configuration and scripting needs.
Using Lua is generally done because it is easy to embed inside a host-application. While it is possible to embed Python, Perl, or other languages, they're relatively heavyweight and not so commonly used in that case.
In my own application I always felt annoyed that mutt didn't have "real" scripting. Just an ad-hoc configuration that made lots of things possible, but neglected some basics (such as loops and similar).
Configuring a mail-client in Lua was a nice exercise, but eventually I moved on to pay for gsuite rather than self-hosting a mailserver of my own so it became a "done" project. Definitely a useful learning experience though, experimenting with user-interface, embedded scripting, and going through lots of learning relating to MIME-handling & etc.
Your project sounds cool - is it possible to process email with Lua scripts, so that I could use a mailbox as a business process queue that is also user-friendly, while having a suite of Lua apps processing the mailboxes? If so, care to share details of your project if its open/available?
It wouldn't be impossible to iterate over a series of mails, and get the message-bodies, but it would be a bit fiddly and annoying as the program was more designed as an email-client.
Using Lua is generally done because it is easy to embed inside a host-application. While it is possible to embed Python, Perl, or other languages, they're relatively heavyweight and not so commonly used in that case.
In my own application I always felt annoyed that mutt didn't have "real" scripting. Just an ad-hoc configuration that made lots of things possible, but neglected some basics (such as loops and similar).
Configuring a mail-client in Lua was a nice exercise, but eventually I moved on to pay for gsuite rather than self-hosting a mailserver of my own so it became a "done" project. Definitely a useful learning experience though, experimenting with user-interface, embedded scripting, and going through lots of learning relating to MIME-handling & etc.