RE: The problems with namespaces in text/html

MathML is just not an authoring language but a computer representation.
Because MathML is based on XML and is by definition constrained by its
structure, it is is and always will be a poor authoring language. While
there's no reason to deliberately make MathML wordy or difficult to
type, its main value is in its ability to represent math notation in a
precise way. Any introduction of ease-of-authoring features will likely
weaken it as a representation.

Paul Topping

> -----Original Message-----
> From: William F Hammond [mailto:hammond@csc.albany.edu] 
> Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 1:40 PM
> To: dev-tech-mathml@lists.mozilla.org; www-math@w3.org
> Subject: Re: The problems with namespaces in text/html
> 
> "Paul Topping" <pault@dessci.com> writes:
> 
> > I second these concerns. MathML already contains markup for 
> > hyperlinks, spacing, and bolding.
> 
> The topic here is small bits of commenting text inside math, 
> wrapped in an <mtext> container.
> 
> <mtext> is a tiny scratchpad for authors (like \text{} inside 
> \displaymath{} in LaTeX), and if we want authors to join us, 
> a few features will need to be there for them.
> 
> Spacing is not the issue.  There is no way I know either to 
> emphasize or to bold part of it.  (I suppose one could use 
> multiple <mtext> containers with appropriate CSS clues, but 
> that would be silly since the reasons for MathML granularity 
> don't apply inside <mtext>.)
> 
> It's true, as Distler said, that there is provision for an 
> xlinked mrow with attributes using XML namespace ':' 
> notation, but that will not fit in an Appendix C profile for 
> math in HTML5.  In fact, I do not see it currently working 
> inside <math> in any user agent other than Mozilla.  And I do 
> not see it in the W3C Test Suite, 
> http://www.w3.org/Math/testsuite/ .  Have I missed something?
> 
> > Nesting languages such as HTML inside MathML inside HTML sounds 
> > desirable, ...
> 
> I'm not in favor of non-math content anywhere recursively inside math.
> 
> What I'm suggested is _taking_ _over_ the 4 names "a", "b" 
> (or "strong"), "em", and "a" when used in "mtext".  That will 
> allow us to control what happens.
> 
>                                     -- Bill
> 
>

Received on Monday, 9 October 2006 21:12:30 UTC