Minutes: MathML full meeting 21 March, 2024

 Attendees:

   - Neil Soiffer
   - Louis Maher
   - David Farmer
   - David Carlisle
   - Bruce Miller
   - Murray Sargent
   - Bert Bos
   - Deyan Ginev
   - Patrick Ion
   - Paul Libbrecht

<https://sandbox.cryptpad.info/code/inner.html?ver=5.7.0-0#cp-md-0-regrets>
Regrets
<https://sandbox.cryptpad.info/code/inner.html?ver=5.7.0-0#cp-md-0-agenda>
Agenda
<https://sandbox.cryptpad.info/code/inner.html?ver=5.7.0-0#cp-md-0-1-announcements-updates-progress-reports>1.
Announcements/Updates/Progress reports

(discussion before the meeting officially started)

NS: Is there a Windows flavor or clipboard type for LaTeX?

NS: I was going to put it out as a plain text, but I thought maybe there is
a clipboard type that I should use.

MuS: I do not know of one. You can always invent one, but then is anybody
else going to use it?

NS to PL and DC: Is there a clipboard flavor or mime type for LaTeX,
similar to MathML?

PL: Well DC: we did ask this on the math list and there were about five
different types.

DC They are not registered, but that is what people used.

NS: I will stick to plain text.

NS: We are going to record the calls to get a more accurate transcript for
Louis. The cloud recordings will be erased in 30 days, and Louis's
transcripts are deleted when NS releases the corresponding minutes.

No one objected to the recording.
<https://sandbox.cryptpad.info/code/inner.html?ver=5.7.0-0#cp-md-0-2-units-a-href-https-en-wikipedia-org-wiki-international_system_of_units-si-units-a->2.
Units: SI Units
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units>
<https://sandbox.cryptpad.info/code/inner.html?ver=5.7.0-0#cp-md-0--a-href-https-github-com-w3c-mathml-issues-475-list-of-units-475-a->List
of Units (#475) <https://github.com/w3c/mathml/issues/475>

NS: This is the MathPlayer unit list. This list is broken down into basic
Si units, derived SI units, accepted SI units, English units, and other
units.

NS: There are accepted units which are non-SI units in every-day use. For
example, atomic mass unit, astronomical unit…

NS first listed the prefixes for the SI units, such as: tera, giga, mega,…

NS: Have I left any units out?

DC: How is this list going to be used? I mean, you could just have unit and
then just put whatever you like in and if it's not a valid unit that's the
author's problem.

DC: You seem to be assuming this list is going to be a validated list,
which means you have a particular syntax in mind?

NS: I do have a little bit of syntax in mind in the sense that you know KM
is kilometers and it would be accepted as kilometers.

NS: This is a useful list for technology so that if AT sees KM, it knows
that it means kilometer.

DC: This is true as long as the KM is not marked with an intent.

DC: If it is marked with the unit property, what else do you need to know?

DG: You need a flat list of entries for intense purposes because you have a
specific property unit and then you want to know what it can resolve
against. So, it doesn't actually matter what the ontology of the units are.
So, whether it's a base, common, or English is completely irrelevant in a
sense. What you want to know is whether capital A and a capital C do or do
not activate when you have the unit property and then you want to know what
they are activated against.

DG: We must decide if C is coulomb or Celsius or is Celsius not a unit.

DG: If you have a big flat list, you can see whether you have clashes, and
what to do with the clashes.

NS: I pulled the prefixes out because including a unit with all its prefix
forms would make a huge list.

DC: We should follow the si unit tex package:
https://texdoc.org/serve/siunitx/0

NS: This list informs AT how to say things.

NS: We should look at the TeX package to see if we left things out.

NS: The point of this list is to show that there are other ways to say
things other than just reading the letters.

BM: is worried about having M be defined as meters.

From Deyan Ginev to Everyone: m

NS: Should we generate intent names for these things?

SI Units <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units>

NS: The point here is that a TeX package could generate an intent with the
name kilogram, and with the name meter.

NS: We can say that units should be spoken a certain way, and it is up to
the authors to provide the intents if the authors want a different
pronunciation.

NS: It would be perfectly reasonable then to say yes, we should generate
intent names for these things.

DC: Let us use a unit property and a long flat list.

DF: There are no latex packages involved in anything I'm doing. What you
need is a way of marking that something's a unit analogous to the backslash
unit that you use in this package. If you just type the letter like Kg,
space M, it means you can interpret it as kilogram meter.

NS: So maybe this whole discussion on units then becomes mute because it's
actually pushed back on the authors.

NS: is worried about enlarging the core list.

NS: If you do not count the prefixes: you have 100 to 150 entries. Maybe
about 25 entries have 20 prefix variants each. This list grows to nearly
1,000 entries.

DC: What is the most natural way to go?

NS: The SI Units are unambiguous.

NS: Things can get ambiguous. Is C Celsius or coulombs? Is "m" miles or
meters.

DF: It gets more complicated when you put prefixes on units like mC for
micro-Celsius.

PL: Things get complicated when you try to do math on them.

BM: The point is for authors to be able to disambiguate, no matter what
notation they're using.

NS: If we go with the unit property then people could make up units like
kilo-miles. In a terse mode you would go km.

PL: You want to be able to express uncommon things.

NS: Someone could also introduce a literal if something is uncommon and not
in core.

DC: If you had a units property it would disambiguate letters.

DC: Just say this expression is a unit. It wouldn't distinguish meters,
miles, and things. But, on the other hand, that's less common.

PL: What is the value of speaking about meters or miles? What is the
difference between making a literal or intent concept?

NS: Concepts have alternative ways of being spoken. "m" is either "m" or
meters. If it is a literal then the author can specify the way it is spoken.

PL: Can we refer to some external list of units?

NS: We should be the ones to curate the list unless there is a really good
list to which we can point.

NS: We have two proposals. One would make concepts for every unit including
all of its prefix variants, or we could have a units property and have a
flat list of units. We could do both, but that would not be good.

Ns: How many of us would like an intent concept-based approach so no unit
property?

DC: Let us see examples of both ways.

DG: It's easy to vote against a large list.

NS: What I was hoping to do today was to figure out what are the conflicts
in the list and therefore determine whether the this really makes any sense
or not.

DC: It depends on the context whether we are talking about meters or miles.

NS: I had not considered that generating the actual concept names was an
option, but it appears to be quite a reasonable option. But okay.

*ACTION* ns: Homework for us to generate some examples of both properties
and concept names. We would like to have a good strong start on a list of
concept names probably by pulling all these names out and figuring out
which ones can accept the prefixes. That would tell us how big the list
could be.

NS: We should also look at DG's lists.

NS: to DG: Can you go through your list to see what new things are in your
lists that are not in NS's list?

DG: I will probably make a huge list with every unit before the meeting, so
that we have it sorted by presentation. And then it's very obvious what
goes where?

NS to DG: Do you want me to go through your list and see what new stuff
there is which is not on my list?

DG: You're welcome to make another list because I didn't want to volunteer
an action item because I don't know how much time I'll have, but I'll try
to find time.

NS: Okay, well, I just don't want us both doing the same thing.

NS: Since you're going to build the big list, let me go through yours and
see if I can find stuff that's not in the list that I created, in which
case I'll add it to the list.

NS: Starting on Monday, I guess. Could be the weekend to do it to go
through your lists.