- From: Bruce Miller <bruce.miller@nist.gov>
- Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 08:53:53 -0500
- To: www-math@w3.org
juanrgonzaleza@canonicalscience.com wrote: > > I think I have detected some confusion in a topic I consider of maximum > importance. For that reason, I would remark the two obvious (related but > independent) points of the CanonMath research are being mixed by others: > > 1) the need for going beyond usual available tools (TeX, MathML, > ASCIIMath, etc.) simply because they fail to provide solutions to some > real life problems. "the need" => _your_ need; Many people are happy with the above. Others are content to extend TeX, ASCIIMath, whatever to solve thier real life problems. And yet others construct other tools to solve thiers. As has been said here repeatedly, if the available methods don't solve your needs, nobody is "forcing" you to use them. You are more than welcome to develop your own solution. > 2) the final implementation of the notation/syntax chosen. For example, > > <CanonMath>a <fraction/> b</CanonMath> > <CanonMath>a &fraction; b</CanonMath> > <CanonMath>a \fraction b</CanonMath> > <CanonMath>a \fraction b</CanonMath> > <CanonMath>a <fract/> b</CanonMath> > <CanonMath>a <f/> b</CanonMath> > ... You don't need pages and pages of straw-men to convince this forum that, at _some_ level of abstraction, these are all equivalent; pretty obvious. (BTW: Using HTML as an example of semantic markup doesn't buy too much credibility here) However, you seem to be ignoring _practical_ issues; the above expressions _are_ different from DOM and XPath points of view. I also haven't seen you address grouping and precedence issues, for example. I would helpfully and respectfully suggest that you actually _implement_ a parser to make these issues more clear. It should be a parser complete enough to parse non-trivial math expressions --- using whatever markup you choose --- rather than just a fragment that substitutes <sup/> for ^. With that suggestion, I've exhausted my constructiveness and interest --- and indeed patience. Please do not consider the lack of further responses as "ignoring you". -- bruce.miller@nist.gov http://math.nist.gov/~BMiller/
Received on Wednesday, 15 March 2006 13:51:01 UTC