What is wrong with using TeX ?
MathML is reinventing the wheel. Only, the MathML wheel is square, flat and breaks when used.
MathML is a failed web standard
31–40 of 177 posts
Re: MathML is a failed web standard
#32> MathML is a failed web standard
Well, the line's over there.
Re: MathML is a failed web standard
#33What is wrong with using TeX ? MathML is reinventing the wheel. Only, the MathML wheel is square, flat and breaks when used.
pcwalton has a good response for that above:
Re: MathML is a failed web standard
#34Blargh. It annoys me that MathML was even a thing. We've already had a perfectly-fine and widely-used markup language for mathematical formulae; it's called TeX. Ideally, I'd prefer that HTML5 include a tag, or something similar, that takes TeX as input and produces formatted output. A side benefit would mean that every browser, and every system, in the world would have TeX installed! At least MathJax can take TeX as…
There is no "math subset" of TeX. You would have to define it. Or include a full TeX engine including macro capabilities into web browsers.
It wouldn't be that hard to define a "maths subset". The fact that there are javascript LaTeX equation renderers clearly means other people have done it. Here's an example:
https://github.com/Khan/KaTeX/wiki/Function-Support-in-KaTeX
You just need to standardise it. There's no need to include all of LaTeX in a standard that is just for rendering equations.
Re: MathML is a failed web standard
#35It’s instructive to see how different MathML is from other math markup languages. Here’s the quadratic formula: In troff, x = {-b +- sqrt { b sup 2 - 4ac}} over 2a In TeX, x = {-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac}} \over {2a} In plain Unicode, 𝑥 = (−𝑏 ± √(𝑏² − 4𝑎𝑐))⁄2𝑎 In MathML, x = − b ± b 2 − 4ac 2a MathML is simply unreasonable to write by hand. Most of the time it’s only ever used as an interchange format, automatically…
Yeah. I think that's inevitable with an XML syntax. XML is good at some things, but representing math expressions clearly is not one of them.
XML is unreadable and unwritable for any markup-heavy document, and math expressions tend to be more markup than text.
Re: MathML is a failed web standard
#36Blargh. It annoys me that MathML was even a thing. We've already had a perfectly-fine and widely-used markup language for mathematical formulae; it's called TeX. Ideally, I'd prefer that HTML5 include a tag, or something similar, that takes TeX as input and produces formatted output. A side benefit would mean that every browser, and every system, in the world would have TeX installed! At least MathJax can take TeX as…
> A side benefit would mean that every browser, and every system, in the world would have TeX installed! Is to run that giant heap of probably not sandboxed or security-audited code in every client actually a thing I would want to have? I mean people are paranoid about js doing unwanted things, but a large distribution of tex code running inside the browser, really?
You can already render LaTeX equations with javascript. It would be madness to include everything but a safe subset of commands that are commonly used to render maths would be fine.
Re: MathML is a failed web standard
#37Blargh. It annoys me that MathML was even a thing. We've already had a perfectly-fine and widely-used markup language for mathematical formulae; it's called TeX. Ideally, I'd prefer that HTML5 include a tag, or something similar, that takes TeX as input and produces formatted output. A side benefit would mean that every browser, and every system, in the world would have TeX installed! At least MathJax can take TeX as…
TeX is analogous to Presentation MathML but doesn't solve the accessibility concerns because the semantic intent of the TeX source isn't always clear. (How do you read a \phantom{}? Or how can you know that "\left( 7 \atop 3 \right)" should be read as "7 choose 3"?)
TeX has "{n \choose k}".
(Replaced by "\binom{n}{k}" in LaTeX with amsmath.)
Re: MathML is a failed web standard
#38Blargh. It annoys me that MathML was even a thing. We've already had a perfectly-fine and widely-used markup language for mathematical formulae; it's called TeX. Ideally, I'd prefer that HTML5 include a tag, or something similar, that takes TeX as input and produces formatted output. A side benefit would mean that every browser, and every system, in the world would have TeX installed! At least MathJax can take TeX as…
> A side benefit would mean that every browser, and every system, in the world would have TeX installed! TeX doesn't have dynamic reflow, is defined by a macro system that involves essentially monkey patching the parser as it goes, lacks anything resembling a DOM, wasn't designed with Unicode or internationalization in mind, is completely unparallelizable, doesn't interoperate with CSS, has its own concept of block a…
All good points, it would be insane to include a full TeX engine in the browser.
But for just rendering equations, I don't think you can beat TeX for ease of use. And most of the criticisms then don't apply - you can void the insane macro system, it doesn't require multiple passes, etc. I guess lack of CSS support could still be an issue.
Re: MathML is a failed web standard
#39It’s instructive to see how different MathML is from other math markup languages. Here’s the quadratic formula: In troff, x = {-b +- sqrt { b sup 2 - 4ac}} over 2a In TeX, x = {-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac}} \over {2a} In plain Unicode, 𝑥 = (−𝑏 ± √(𝑏² − 4𝑎𝑐))⁄2𝑎 In MathML, x = − b ± b 2 − 4ac 2a MathML is simply unreasonable to write by hand. Most of the time it’s only ever used as an interchange format, automatically…
Yeah. I think that's inevitable with an XML syntax. XML is good at some things, but representing math expressions clearly is not one of them.
Indeed. But you could always define your own alternative syntax and write a simple translator to XML.
Re: MathML is a failed web standard
#40Blargh. It annoys me that MathML was even a thing. We've already had a perfectly-fine and widely-used markup language for mathematical formulae; it's called TeX. Ideally, I'd prefer that HTML5 include a tag, or something similar, that takes TeX as input and produces formatted output. A side benefit would mean that every browser, and every system, in the world would have TeX installed! At least MathJax can take TeX as…
> widely-used markup language for mathematical formulae; it's called TeX.
For display yes, though it is far larger in scope than that and I wouldn't want to teach someone TeX just for a few formulas, and it is geared for display and not manipulation.
MathML was intended to be just for math type markup so is more concise in that respect, and IIRC was intended to allow automated manipulation in an easy manner (I wouldn't want to do it by hand due to the verbosity of it all, but understanding and manipulating the structure in code must be easier than trying to interpret TeX).