Technical reasons for some options taken on design of MathML

• From: <juanrgonzaleza@canonicalscience.com>
• Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 22:13:47 -0800 (PST)
• To: <www-math@w3.org>
• Message-ID: <3030.217.124.69.224.1143699227.squirrel@webmail.canonicalscience.com>

Unfortunately, the w3c MathML specification does not explain to readers
the reasons for the several options taken by its authors.

For example,

- what is the argument to use some like

<apply><divide/><ci>A</ci><cn>2</cn></apply>

instead of shorter

<divide><ci>A</ci><cn>2</cn></divide> ?


- What is the reason for

<apply><plus/><cn>5</cn><cn>8</cn></apply>

instead of calculator-like

<apply><cn>5</cn><plus/><cn>8</cn></apply> ?


- What is the reason for

<msup>base <mrow>index1 index2</mrow></msup>

instead of

base<sup>index1 index2</sup>

of SGML/HTML/XHTML/CSS

or the

base^{index1 index2}

of TeX systems ?


Thanks in advance!


Juan R.

Center for CANONICAL |SCIENCE)

Received on Thursday, 30 March 2006 06:14:00 UTC