I'll compose a response to Bill shortly. Suggestions and comments are welcome. -Ron --------------- Return-path: <@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU:owner-emj@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU> Received: from gate1.ams.org by AXP14.AMS.ORG (PMDF V5.0-6 #16534) id <01I76N4C1BF40014H0@AXP14.AMS.ORG>; Wed, 17 Jul 1996 15:24:48 -0500 (EST) Received: from uacsc2.albany.edu ([128.204.1.10]) by gate1.ams.org via smtpd (for axp14.ams.org [130.44.1.14]) with SMTP; Wed, 17 Jul 1996 19:25:34 +0000 (UT) Received: from CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU by CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 7099; Wed, 17 Jul 1996 15:22:04 -0400 (EDT) Received: from CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@ALBNYVM1) by CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 2187; Wed, 17 Jul 1996 15:22:04 -0400 Received: from CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU by CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU (LISTSERV release 1.8b) with NJE id 2053 for EMJ@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU; Wed, 17 Jul 1996 15:22:01 -0400 Received: from ALBNYVM1 (NJE origin SMTP@ALBNYVM1) by CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 2185; Wed, 17 Jul 1996 15:21:37 -0400 Received: from sarah.albany.edu by CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with TCP; Wed, 17 Jul 1996 15:21:35 -0400 (EDT) Received: from phoebe.math.albany.edu (phoebe.math.albany.edu [169.226.23.125]) by sarah.albany.edu (8.7.4/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA22302; Wed, 17 Jul 1996 15:22:11 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from hammond@localhost) by phoebe.math.albany.edu (8.7.4/8.7.3) id PAA05890; Wed, 17 Jul 1996 15:22:09 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 15:22:09 -0400 From: "William F. Hammond" <hammond@csc.albany.edu> Subject: listmail W3C-MATH-ERB Sender: Electronic Math Journals Discussion List <EMJ@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU> To: Multiple recipients of list EMJ <EMJ@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU> Reply-to: Electronic Math Journals Discussion List <EMJ@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU> Message-id: <199607171922.PAA05890@phoebe.math.albany.edu> Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Approved-By: "William F. Hammond" <hammond@CSC.ALBANY.EDU> Comments: To: rfw@ams.org ************************************************************* * archive: http://math.albany.edu:8800/hm/emj/ * * wais index: http://nyjm.albany.edu:8000/SF/emjsearch.html * ************************************************************* To Ron Whitney -- I understand that you are the ERB Chair. Is it possible for a non-member of the ERB to participate in the list "w3c-math-erb@w3.org"? Perhaps you might be able to forward my comments to the list. I would like to see the reviews on MathSciNet available in HTML-Math without the need for other-than-standard browser processing. Markup isomorphic to a narrow dialect of pageless LaTeX is about right for that. If the ERB agrees with this point of view, then part of the ERB's task might be to set that dialect at the same time that the details of HTML-Math are being set. Although my concept of HTML-Math is not something rich enough for either journal articles or symbolic manipulation program data, it is something that is (1) better than the kind of typescript that was used for preprints prior to the widespread use of TeX and LaTeX for preprints, (2) more than adequate for network posting of educational materials, and (3) good for informal communication among mathematicians who want to share something that is easier to read than TeX source. I think that the March '95 draft for HTML-3.0 was pointed in the right direction. I think that work on "structure" should continue, but it will easily go beyond what is reasonable for the mimetype "text/html", which is the basic web document. So I hope that the incorporation of HTML-math into HTML is not held up by work on additional structure intended for processing by tools other than web browsers. We need to have exposure at the basic level of the web for the sake of the public relations of the entire mathematical and scientific community. To have wide exposure one needs not only processing done by standard tools but also *fast* processing. User impatience is an impediment to exposure. Remember that there are limits to the level of "structure" in HTML. For example there is no sentence container tag. More rigorous content-based markup would provide for that. The needs of non-visual users are important because many of the most important users will be non-visual information-gathering robots. I think that some of the criticism of LaTeX-level markup in this regard fails to take due notice of math-mode. If the markup is not too complicated, one might hope that browsing tools will enable users to write search-strings in that language. Published mathematics is never without ambiguity except for the context supplied by its audience. Symbolic manipulation programs can supply context, but it is not easy. My suspicion is that the goal of having markup that can be fed into symbolic manipulation programs, if it is to accommodate all such programs, is very much more complicated than most imagine. Regardless, such markup is not appropriate for incorporation in documents under the web's basic mimetype "text/html" since those documents are to be processed only by web browsers. Remember that, as we speak, an author may furnish anchors to documents of arbitrary mimetype, e.g. "application/x-mathematica". Probably within 18 months the spiffy browsers will handle recursive documents (with arbitary mixing of mimetypes) using the <OBJECT> tag that is now under discussion. -- Bill HammondReceived on Wednesday, 17 July 1996 15:46:45 UTC
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