Minutes: MathML intent meeting Dec 16

 Attendees:

   - David Carlisle
   - Sam Dooley
   - David Farmer
   - Deyan Ginev
   - Patrick Ion
   - Louis Maher
   - Bruce Miller
   - Murray Sargent
   - Neil Soiffer
   - Steve Noble
   - Bert Bos
   - Paul Libbrecht
   - Stephen Watt (from 13:30)

Regrets:

   - Cary Supalo

Announcements/updates

We will take off two weeks for the holidays and resume on Jan 6.
Background material

Bruce's material:
https://mathml-refresh.github.io/discussion-papers/semantics-mini

Sam's Proposal:
https://samdooley.github.io/mathml-docs/intent2cmml/intent.html

Sam's Demo: https://samdooley.github.io/mathml-docs/intent2cmml/demo.html

Deyan's proposal: https://prodg.org/talks/encyclopedic-intent

Deyan's demo page :https://dginev.github.io/tiny-mathml-a11y-demo/
David C to present (simplified?) proposal for intent syntax

DC Wrote:

Four versions:
A (basic)

intent := literal | selector | intent '(' intent [ ',' intent ]* ')'
literal := [letters|digits|_|-]* selector := argref argref := '$' NCName
B (numeric ids) (Deyan)

replace NCName by [digit]+
C (Basic + paths) (Bruce)

intent := literal | selector | intent '(' intent [ ',' intent ]* ')'
literal := [letters|digits|_|-]+ selector := argref | argpath argref := '$'
NCName argpath := '$' [digit]+ [ '/' [digit]+ ]*
D (Basic + paths + wildcards)

intent := wildcard | literal | selector | intent '(' intent [ ',' intent ]*
')' literal := [letters|digits|_|-]+ selector := argref argref := '$'
NCName wildcard := '@' (or perhaps '*')

David C : My proposal is to "start small" and add things when they are
needed.

NS: Agrees with DC. Avoid positional selectors. Initially no wild cards.
Add them if they are needed.

dg: What would be a simple method to add variable names?

DC: Use ID1 or ARG1. Do not use any special naming convention.

DG: When people are writing intent by hand, they should keep things simple
and not depend on content.

DG: If you speak something versus reading something, could you be confused
about the meaning of what is being read?

NS: There should be a validator tool that matches intent with the
referenced args later in the tree and vice-versa. The first would be an
error and the later would be a warning (an 'arg' that isn't part of an
intent). That should catch most mistakes.

DF: If you have an outside structure containing ARG1 and ARG2, and you have
an internal structure that also has ARG1 and ARG2, what is the method to
manage this situation? Is this case allowed?

DC: Yes, nested cases are allowed, but it is expected that the inner ARGs
are under their own intents. That is, it must be possible to find the ARGs
of an intent without descending into anything with its own intent or arg.

BM: What naming conventions will we use?

NS: Would like to start with a more restricted naming convention. If new
things need to be added, then these new things can be added without having
to redo earlier work.

BM: Wants to start off with more permissive naming conventions.

DG: What is the timeline of work for the group.

NS: reviewed our timeline. Our deliverables are not required; however, we
must produce something. We are behind on MathML4. We may be OK getting
intent out.

NS: charter timeline: https://www.w3.org/Math/Documents/Charter2021.html

DG: Wants to do more prototyping; however, we are behind.

NS: wants to prototype over the holidays.

NS: Do people agree with DC's proposal to use names instead of numbers for
identifiers?

Group: Yes.

BM: Let us try this and see what works.

NS: Over the holidays, NS will start putting intent into his Math CAT tool.

DG: described a project that he will work on with his Khan Academy
cases/level 1.

DC: His proposal does allow underscores in his variable naming scheme. He
wants to turn underscores into dashes.

DG: Lists of prototype intent values:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EsWou1K5nxBdLPvQapdoA9h-s8lg_qjn8fJH64g9izQ/edit#gid=1358098730

NS: What do we do with the names such as greater than.

DG: Will add Wikipedia links to define the symbols we will use.

DC: Can we agree that DG will put Wikipedia names into DG's sheet, and we
will agree on these names? DG will add any exceptions to his list if there
is no guidance from Wikipedia. We can disagree with Wikipedia names.

SD, BM, DG, and DF described their work goals for the holidays.

BM: wants to work on polyfills. NS pointed at examples of this.

NS: Some polyfills I wrote are at
https://github.com/mathml-refresh/mathml-polyfills