[jonathanstrange]

You mean compiling LuaTeX itself or using LuaTeX to compile? I don't know about LuaTeX, but I've just noticed that pdftex gets magnitudes faster when you install it (including all fonts, etc.) on an SSD. It's very I/O intensive.

I was amazed about the speed increase. (although it's kind of obvious in retrospect..)

[JorgeGT]

I have to try this! Also it's useful to separate very long documents in different .tex files using `\include` and then use `\includeonly{file_im_writing}` to only compile the part you're working on.

[hyh1048576]

Well I mean LuaTeX (in fact LuaLaTeX) is too slow to compile tex files. I'm using a Mac and it has SSD. a simple slides takes 5 seconds to compile, which is very slow compare to things like pdfLaTeX.

[iheartmemcache]

Are you using Beamer? What CTAN packages are you using? Those long render times could have quite a few reasons but fonts are one reason for sure.

If you want absolutely instantaneous (on the order of ~100ms for full generation of entire thesis with multiple passes for TOC/index/list of figures proper enumeration) output, RAMdisks with all of your content - that means install, fonts, graphic assets, packages, etc is only the way to go (without re-writing large chunks of LuaTeX). When I needed a quick render loop for final alterations, I had ~6gb of RAM on a dedicated partition in /opt/tex/ on FreeBSD setup just for that and it was nothing short of a pleasure.