Dear Math-ERB Friends: I thought it might be useful to send my high-level understanding of where our committee is heading. The picture I paint below is based largely on discussions from the last few weekly conference calls. The fact that these calls have been so poorly attended provided further motivation for sending this message. During the last few conference calls we discussed two possible entry points into the HTML math environment - the first being our HTML math notation (i.e. the specification that Bruce is developing) and the second being a HTML display-oriented markup that is directly derivable from our display list format. I believe Neil was thinking of this display-oriented HTML format as being logically equivalent to the display list - one might think of the display list as being a "compiled" version of the other. A primary motivation for the second format is that it would be easier (and therefore cheaper) for publishers to convert legacy data into a display-oriented markup. Providing a display-only entry point might therefore help to facilitate more widespread acceptance of HTML math across the electronic publishing community. Uphill translation of legacy data to the fuller HTML math notation would also be possible for those who choose that route. Please forgive the crudeness of the ASCII-based display below, but I think this fairly accurately conveys my understanding of where we are heading. If people find this useful I'd be quite willing to put this on the Web site as a GIF that I maintain, but I wanted to send it via email in this format first to be sure everyone read it. ;-) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------- ------------- | HTML | (i.e., | "DAVE'S" | / - - >| MATH | Bruce's | NOTATION | | NOTATION | spec) ------------- / --------------- | | | / (Bruce)| |(Dave?) | MACROS? | / | | V V / ------------ -------------- Uphill |EXPRESSION| | OpenMath | /Translation | TREE | | EXPRESSION | Possible ------------ | TREE | / / | -------------- /(Bruce) | / /(Dave?) | / | / V V ------------------ --------- ------------------ ------------- | HTML MATH | 1:1 |DISPLAY| | TEMPLATE | | OpenMath | |DISPLAY-ORIENTED|<-mapping ->| LIST | | MATCHING | | DISPLAY | | NOTATION | --------- |(ADDS SEMANTICS)| | LIST | ------------------ | ------------------ ------------- \ | | \ V V (Robert)\ ---------- ---------------------- \--------->| WEB | |VOICE SYNTHESIZER | |RENDERER| |SYMBOLIC MANIPULATOR| ---------- |ETC. | ---------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few observations and questions: - If I'm reading the recent mail correctly, we seem to have two competing schemes for the spec for the full HTML math notation (Bruce's spec and Dave's spec). This seems like wasted and duplicated effort, but maybe I'm misunderstanding or not following things accurately. - There has also been some notion of using the OpenMath specs for the expression tree and/or display list formats. I assume that would make Bruce's work more difficult, since I believe the expression tree and display list formats he's currently working with are based to some extent on Mathematica models. - I'm not sure how and where to integrate macros into this picture. Do the macros simply expand into HTML math "primitives" in the expression tree, or is some of the macro context passed along to the expression tree to be used as "hints" for the template matching? - Do we need both the "HTML math display-oriented notation" and the "display list" formats? I'm guessing yes, since I think we probably wouldn't want to translate from the expression tree into the more verbose HTML display-oriented notation. - If we maintain both, then Robert, I assume the work you're doing on the parser from the display format could be fairly easily adapted for use with the display list format. Yes? Comments are most welcome. -RalphReceived on Thursday, 25 July 1996 13:46:22 UTC
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