Re: A Modest Proposal

on the subject of "Re: A Modest Proposal", BILL@innosoft.com postulated:

> > At 1:23 AM 1/27/95, Bill Brooks wrote:
> > >
> > >There certainly is a "cross-platform standard for defining an
> > >equation, it's called "LaTeX". I've often wondered why the authors of
> > >HTML just didn't adopt and/or adapt it instead of reinventing the
> > >wheel and coming up with Yet Another Language.
> 
> > LaTeX is only one of several mathematical typesetting languages that were
> > studied and considered carefully by Dave Raggett in designing HTML+, and in
> > current work on HTML 3.0.  The reason not to use LaTeX (or any other)
> > straight out of the box is that they are all too complex.  One of the
> > primary goals of HTML is to balance power with simplicity.

Yes, TeX is complex.  This is because typesetting mathematics is complex.
I think if anyone wants to typeset mathematics, they would (or should) not
be surprised to find that there is a great deal more to it than typesetting
text.

> We really are talking about TeX's method of presenting mathematics. 
> LaTeX does not really add anything to the math tool box of TeX.
> 
> It seems to me that TeX is the standard for representing mathematics in
> a machine independant format.  Certainly the American Mathematical
> Society believes this since the journals that they print start out as 
> TeX documents.  To not use TeX's methods for describing the presentation
> of mathematics really needs to be explained.  I am not suggesting that
> there are no compromises to be made in getting the information on the
> screen, but to implement yet another standard to describe mathematical
> notation really should be questioned, especially since the problem has
> been solved so completely already. 

Agreed, please explain.

-- 
Every program has two purposes --
written and another for which it wasn't.

Eric D. Hendrickson       Damnit!  I can't stop the heterocyclic declination!
Central Computing Services          University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA
    I came to confess.  *I* was the second gunman on the grassy knoll....
<a href="http://www.umn.edu/~edh">Eric.Hendrickson-1@umn.edu</a> 612/626-7761

Received on Monday, 30 January 1995 15:13:25 UTC