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Re: MathML

Concernant « Re: MathML », Ulrik Vieth schreibt :

 > My impression is that encoding math is always on the borderline
 > between visual and semantic.

precisely.  formulas are visual shortcuts that are eventually handled
as _objects_, their semantics is thus simultaneously complex and
integrated. What is magic with tex coding is that it's sufficiently
generic to carry both aspects at once, in my opinion it is the reason
of the success of tex as a format used by the mathematicians
themselves, rather than only as a sophisticate software used only by
printers, what it could have been. I too do think that i requires
little effort to code maths in tex at a higher level making the coding
usable by others than experienced users (by programs, e.g.), but i'm
still waiting to see some standard coming. I wondered if MathMl would
impulse this in latex as somehow SGML/HTML did it for text, of if
anarchy would prevail...


> Careless coding tends to be mostly
 > visual, but there's at least a potential to make it more semantic
 > by using high-level macros to encode symbols by their function
 > and having them translated to low-level macros in the background.
 >

yes yes yes ! tex (as a program) is not always coherent with tex (as a
coding scheme) though... {,} making the comma mathord (there should be
at least 2 commas in maths, one mathpunct, one mathord); in
\Sum_{i^n, {i is _not_ an index nor n an exponant,
mathematically speaking. My feeling is that the Knuthian macros play
like a virtuose with tex's font oddities and abilities, at the expense
of the genericity of the markup (too much clerveness, too many special
cases are not good for genericity...).

 > I brought up the idea of a math fonts session already a few weeks ago.

I know, that's how i discovered this list ;-)

 > in progress), but rather if there will be enough knowlegable and
 > interested people who are attending.  There is no point in scheduling
 > a presentation and a panel discussion on math font encodings, if only
 > two or three of the active participants will be able to attend.
 >
 > As for MathML the situation is probably even more difficult, since the
 > majority of the participants of the W3C working group are more likely
 > to attend a World Wide Web conference than a EuroTeX conference.
 >

yes yes (again) but this time ET98 is coupled with a week on
electronic publishing (RIDT, EP) so maybe people will be there? I'll
try to get some info about this.

   Thierry Bouche.       -----       thierry.bouche@ujf-grenoble.fr
          http://www-fourier.ujf-grenoble.fr/~bouche/

>There should be not need for you to send your messages to Sussex
>via Duesseldorf.

i like oblique strategies ;-)