Re: <math>, <fig>, ... (fwd)

At 11:49 AM 5/21/96, Brian Behlendorf wrote:
>Am I a pariah for thinking that the functionality which <math> hopes
>to encompass would be much better suited to a different data type
>altogether, embedded in HTML using <object> rather than trying to
>squeeze it into HTML proper?
Plausible, but one would need a little more detail of a design to judge the
advantages and disadvantages.

> Separating it out makes implementation 10x
>easier (just distribute plug-ins),
How many plugins?  One for every processor/OS combination?  A big advantage
of staying within html is to stay platform-independent.

On the other hand, one could certainly imagine math markup interpreted by a
general-purpose applet interpreter.  Provided the interpreter is already
widely available (e.g., Java) then the portability issue is addressed. And
if the math markup is reasonably readable as text, browsers without
interpreter support, or without graphics, might do ok to just present it
uncooked.

Received on Tuesday, 21 May 1996 16:55:10 UTC