Re: ***MATH***

"Daniel W. Connolly" <connolly@beach.w3.org> wrote
> In message <199607101441.QAA30635@gilgamesj.uio.no>, Lineaer Algebraiker writes
> :
> >Has the whole math effort died?
> 
> Nope. See:
> 
> http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/Activity

Nothing interesting or new there...

> 
> > I seem to remember that we were promised =
> >results, and at least an idea of a timetable by 1st july.
> 
> I don't recall such a timetable. Does anyone know where
> this came from?

I saw it first in www-html Digest V92 #102 - which I now have found out was in 
part a direct copy of http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/Wilbur/ where it says:

"A working draft with greater details on each element will be available for 
review shortly. The expected release
date is July 1. "

On closer reading this page doesn't explicitly mention math, but it's getting 
to be about time!

> 
> >http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/Math/
> >
> >is dated  1996/03/14 ...
> 
> >I have a *lot* of work to be done which I have been forced to postpone be=
> >cause =
> >'they' nuked the 3.0 standard :-(
> 
> Nobody 'nuked' anything. It was just a case of lack of a critical
> mass of resources to get the spec finished _and_ the code deployed.
> Again, please see the HTML Activity statement.

see comment above...


> 
> By the way: one of the places resources were lacking was in the HTML
> working group of the IETF. The IETF is an all-volunteer
> organization. So there was no 'they'. There were only folks who were
> doing the work, and folks sitting on the side, not doing the work.
> 
> >There are quite a few of us out here waiting for the standard.
> 
> Is it really a standard you want, or some software that supports
> math functionality?

First and foremost I want the STANDARD!!! Then, when thats established, I want 
software (anything that runs on Unix/Linux, and, of course, Netscape) that 
supports the standard. If I only wanted "software that supports math 
functionality" then I could have stayed with Arena, or done a number of other 
stupid things that ensured that I was the only one that could read my web 
pages... (They're in Norwegian already, so I feel no need to decrease my 
potential audience any further ;-)

I ***DON'T*** want plug-ins, inline gifs or what-have-you. latex2html does 
that job more than well enough (sorry Ping, but your stuff is useless to me 
because of this, as far as I could see).

HTML3.0 worked just fine for my purposes, except that noone supported it in 
the end; I didn't quite understand what people had against it.

It is *very* frustrating to have to sit and wait aroud so long for a standard 
I have no real influence on. Could we at least have some dates? Will my 
grandchildren be able to code math directly in html?;-(

I just hope the end-product uses some experience from LaTeX, which every 
mathematician knows is the only sensible way to write mathematics. <fear>Or 
does MS's membership in W3C mean that we'll get something based on <yuck>
Word</yuck>?</fear> 

Whilst I'm at it, why not just add a new tag or two:
<latex><text>here I can write all the math I want...<text>\int^\alpha_\beta 
\sin x dx</latex>?

> 
> Dan
> 

What I really want to know is: will we have something soon (ie. a math 
standard and support from 'most' browsers) or should I start my own 
alternative to the W3C, which, after all, functions far from ideally from my 
point of view?

-- 
James Ø. Baum
MA104 Lineær Algebra Fjernundervisningsprosjektet -
MA104 Linear Algebra 'Open University Project' - Oslo, Norway
http://www.math.uio.no/~ma104/	#include <standard/disclaimer>

Received on Tuesday, 16 July 1996 11:02:05 UTC