Re: MathML-in-HTML5

Ian Hickson said:
> On Sun, 1 Oct 2006 juanrgonzaleza@canonicalscience.com wrote:
>>
>> Then silent... and now Mozilla community and Ian launch this approach.
>
> Um, I'm not launching anything. I was asked by a Mozilla developer for
> comments on an experimental implementation of allowing MathML content to
>  be included in text/html documents, and I gave technical feedback.
> That's  all.

In [http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/000847.html] Distler
wrote:

<blockquote>
On a related note, Ian Hickson suggests allowing MathML in text/html, as
part of HTML5.
</blockquote>

And cites your own blog as source. Maybe it is all a big confusion but it
appears to be firmly sourced in you.

> In general, though, your e-mail seems to imply that the way things
> should  work is that first we write a specification, and then we have
> implementations, and we somehow manage to get the specification perfect
> the first time. This isn't how things work. To get a specification, we
> first have to have experimental implementations and proof-of-concepts,
> we  have to do research into authoring practices, etc. Only once
> implementors  and authors have experience can they give the spec writers
> feedback that  allow us to write a useful spec.
>
> I support Roger's experimentation here, as it will provide us with
> valuable implementation experience and thus allow us to work out how to
> move forward on this.
>

In the past you rudely critized Apple because inventing new HTML tags
without discussing them in a standards forum first. Now you and others
Mozillers are promoting 'experimentation' in this field without first
noticing it via formal ways to the rest of community as White Lynx
carefully pointed.

> The "WHATWG philosophy" is pragmatism.

The next dualities were noticed at WhatG list by more people than me

HTML 5 <==> XHTML 2
canvas <==> SVG
Web Forms 2 <==> XForms

As example of why one would wait

HTML 5 Math <==> MathML

Also was the point of Hakum Lie.

My remark also tried to clarify a bit the real status of WhatWG regarding
other XML W3C technologies. When David Carlisle said you

>> I suspect part of the reason for "html5" is a feeling that that never
>> happened and isn't going to be mainstream any time soon, and that a
>> solution that directly addresses the fixed html vocabulary, with perhaps
>> two specific extensions such as svg and mathml will in practice cover
>> the vast majority of browser needs, and other vocabularies can be
>> transformed to html+.. before being served.

Your reply was

> I think that's pretty much exactly correct, yes.

I tried to remark that there is not XForms-into-HTML5 not SVG-into-HTML5,
just alternatives as <canvas>. Reason for initial draft for _alternative_
mathematics in HTML 5.

> Mozilla already has a MathML
> implementation; the easiest and most pragmatic way forward is to reuse
> it.

Then it looks more as a motion favouring Mozilla than a motion favouring
MathML, users or even the web.

I agree with Paul Topping here.

1) Mozilla heads rejecting mathml in html.

2) Next developing a 'xhtml' browser never fixing bugs.

3) Now that Microsoft is ready to a full XML publishing framework with
their next movements (e.g. Office 2007 and the open xml format standarized
via ECMA) then now, just now, xhtml/xml is evil.

4) Next attempts to return to html framework: Forms, canvas, and now
MATH(T)ML 5. Current Mathml implementation in Gecko engine reuses the html
and CSS layers, therefore this motion is rather understandable from the
Mozilla position.

>> I see Ian claiming that he want to see stuff as <none> in HTML 5
>> instead  valid <none/> of MathML. He want no MathML entities except
>> two or three  he choosed, he changes the syntax from &InvisibleTimes;
>> to
>> &InvisibleTimes and does other further changes. That, of course, looks
>>  somewhat like MathML but is not MathML.
>
> I'm not sure what makes you think I would want semicolons to be optional
>  on entities;

[Ian Hickson]
> The problem with adding entities is that a LOT of people do things like
>
>   href="/u?aa=foo&ab=foo&ac=foo&ad=foo"
>
> ...which today works, but would break if MathML entities were introduced
> (since &ac is a MathML entity).

[Roger B. Sidje]
> If it is strict then maybe entities could be required to have a
> semi-colon -- which will then avoid the ambiguities you mentioned above.

[Ian Hickson]
> That would break back-compat.

[Matt Sicker]
> Oh, I've seen this problem before; when people would link to Image
> Shack, part of the URL contained "&image=foo".  Of course, it looked
> odd seeing the "&image" part become the imaginary part character (kinda
> looks like a dragon), but the URL still worked.  This is why I
> encourage usage of the semicolon instead...

> On the long term I would imagine that most entities probably could be
> introduced, and certain entities will have to be left out for
> compatibility reasons.

Just a few days ago Ian Hickson said:

> Yeah... Do we really need those? Some of them seem reasonable to add, but
> 2000 seems like too many for the mnemonic advantage to beat just using
> Unicode codepoints...

> Cheers,
> --
> Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
> http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
> Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'


Juan R.

Center for CANONICAL |SCIENCE)

Received on Tuesday, 3 October 2006 17:49:33 UTC