Re: a minimal core intent proposal

Hi Neil,

Thank you for the nice exposition in the document, it was easy to follow. I
think we can easily spend an entire meeting discussing the details. Some
early thoughts, to help seed a discussion:

I continue to be of the opinion that for the intent values to be adoptable,
we need a consistent and intuitive naming scheme. I have referred to my
preference as "encyclopedic names" in the past:
https://prodg.org/talks/encyclopedic-intent#/5

For annotations we find absolutely necessary, but which do not fit the main
naming convention, I think we need to create extensions - either with more
syntax, or with more attributes.
For constructs such as "unit", "currency", "trig-function", etc, an open
proposal is to introduce a simple typing mechanism ("isa"):
https://github.com/w3c/mathml/issues/426

I think the names in your document can be made compatible with such a
conceptual framework (or similar).

Separately, some artificial names can be reworked as larger expressions,
e.g. "power-with-subscript($base,$sub,$super)" can instead be realised as
"power(subscript($base,$sub), $super)" or "subscript(power($base,$super),
$sub)", respectively, depending on author intention. It is especially
helpful if we knew the subscript was an index: compare the speech "A at
index i, squared" with "A squared, at index i".

---
On Defaults.

The rules you have described are a good fit for K-12 documents, but not for
higher mathematics, where the universal assumptions are much more limited.
As a starting example, an "msubsup" where the base is a summation (∑) or
integral sign (∫) should really not receive a "subscripted variable raised
to a power" default, but rather a "big operator with range" default. In
some countries, integrals and sums are already taught near the end of K-12,
so even that distinction is a bit slippery.

I think a set of rules that stays close to Unicode would be a better fit
for higher-ed collections. So we may want to have a "Unicode Defaults"
baseline ("superscript" instead of "power", "double-struck capital N"
instead of "natural numbers", etc). And then add an appropriately named
extension for common mathematical notations (in K-12?), which can be opted
in or opted out of.

Greetings,
Deyan


On Wed, Nov 9, 2022 at 12:56 PM Neil Soiffer <soiffer@alum.mit.edu> wrote:

> I wrote a proposal <https://w3c.github.io/mathml-docs/minimal-intent-core>
> for simplifying what goes into intent core. It ended up being sort of an
> "AT requirements" document for core. If I extend it a little further to
> include what AT should do with "intent" (currently just presumed everyone
> knows), it would be the basis for an actual AT requirements document (or
> appendix). It also serves to let authors/authoring software know what they
> can count on as default behavior by AT.
>
> The proposal contains some open questions, but I believe it is fleshed out
> enough that it is understandable and actionable (let's do this/don't do
> this). It extends what I put in Deyan's intent spreadsheet and also has
> explanations. It will be the basis for the third agenda item on Thursday.
>
>     Neil
>
>