Re: MathML-in-HTML5

"White Lynx" <whitelynx@operamail.com> writes:

> | Discussion started at
> |  http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.tech.layout
> |  http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.tech.mathml

Yes, the email list www-math is a better place for this topic.  (One
must be a subscriber to post.)

>> XHTML is the web language of the future -- and it always well be. It 
>> might as well be dead.
>
> MathML is not necessary confined to XHTML, it may use other XML
> application as host languages. In particular one can name several
> XML applications that are much more suitable for encoding scientific
> articles then XHTML (NIH Journal Publishing DTD, DocBook, TEI). Of
> course XHTML will remain to be the most widespread host language for
> MathML, but it is not something that MathML absolutely depends
> on.  ...

Much of the comment in the mozilla list about HTML5 vs. XHTML+MathML
arises from the absence of standard author-level markup.

Because it's hard to render math properly, it's reasonable that
author-level markup is not what is normally shipped as content through
http but, rather, is translated server-side to browser fodder.
MathML works quite well as browser fodder.

There is so little content because there is so little distribution
of authoring resources.

> ...  Removing it from source but keeping in DOM does not make any
> sense, as you remove semantics but keep this stuff in DOM.

Absolutely.

If names like &dagger; are going to be seen in the DOM, then they
should be SDATA, not CDATA.  I'm inclined to think that they don't
belong in the DOM.  If they really need to be client-side decision
points, they should be reborn as defined-empty elements.

>> Although the MathML community is self-contained today, we all know 
>> what happens to species that evolve on islands: they get smaller and 
>> prone to extinction.

Yes, politics is important here, and the entire math community, not
just the MathML community, may need to speak on this.  Before we ask
them to speak, we need to be together on what they should say.

                                    -- Bill

Received on Monday, 2 October 2006 16:10:31 UTC