I'm coming late to this thread but I have to say that the misunderstanding present in the original post is huge. The author can take refuge in that he's made a common category mistake. MathML is a computer representation for math, TeX is a human input language.
MathML was never intended to be typed by humans so it is no wonder that you find it a bad experience. TeX is a poor computer representation which is one reason why MathML was invented. It is reasonable to have a discussion of the relative merits of entering math by typing TeX vs point-and-click editing of math (ie, direct manipulation editing). I am biased toward the latter but I can understand the feelings of those whose hands know TeX really well. In short, both MathML and TeX have good reasons to exist and don't compete with each other in their primary categories. On Sunday, May 5, 2013 8:38:39 AM UTC-7, Benoit Jacob wrote: > Hi, > > > > Summary: MathML is a vestigial remnant of the XML-everything era, and we > > should drop it. > > > > *** > > > > 1. Reasons why I believe that MathML never was a good idea. Summary: > > over-specialized and uniformly inferior to the pre-existing, > > well-established standard, TeX. > > > > 1.1. MathML is too specialized: we should be reluctant to have a > > separate spec for every kind of specialized typography. What if musicians > > wanted their own MusicML too? > > > > 1.2. MathML reinvents the wheel, poorly. A suitable subset of TeX (not > > the entirety of TeX, as that is a huge, single-implementation technology > > that reputedly only Knuth ever fully understood) was the right choice all > > along, because: > > > > 1.2.1. TeX is already the universally adopted standard --- and > > already was long before MathML was invented. Check for yourself on > > http://arxiv.org/ , where most new math papers are uploaded --- pick any > > article, then "other" formats, then "Source": you can then download TeX > > sources for almost every article. > > > > 1.2.2. TeX is very friendly to manual writing, being concise and > > close to natural notation, with limited overhead (some backslashes and > > curly braces), while MathML is as tedious to handwrite as any other > > XML-based format. An example is worked out at > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MathML#Example_and_comparison_to_other_formats, > > where the solution to the quadratic equation is one line of TeX versus > > 30 > > lines of MathML! > > > > 1.2.3. An important corollary of being very close to natural notation > > is that TeX can be nearly trivially "read aloud". That means that it offers > > a particularly easy accessibility story. No matter what mechanism is used > > to graphically display equations, providing the TeX source (similarly to > > images alt text) would allow anyone to quickly read it themselves without > > any kind of software support; and screen reading software could properly > > read equations with minimal TeX-specific support code. For example, TeX > > code such as "\int_0^1 x^2 dx" can be readily understood by any human with > > basic TeX exposure (which is nearly 100% of mathematicians) and can be > > easily handled by any screen reader that knows that \int should be read as > > "integral" and that immediately after it, _ and ^ should be read as "from" > > and "to" respectively. > > > > *** > > > > 2. Reasons why even if MathML had ever been a decent idea, now would be the > > right time to drop it. Summary: never really got traction, and the same > > rendering can now be achieved without MathML support. > > > > 2.1. MathML never saw much traction outside of Mozilla, despite having > > been around for a decade. WebKit only got a very limited partial > > implementation recently, and Google removed it from Blink. The fact that it > > was just dropped from Blink says much about how little it's used: Google > > wouldn't have disabled a feature that's needed to render web pages in the > > real world. Opera got an implementation too, but Opera's engine has been > > phased out. > > > > 2.2. High-quality mathematical typography in browsers is now possible, > > without using MathML. Examples include MathJax ( http://www.mathjax.org/ ), > > which happily takes either TeX or MathML input and renders it without > > specific browser support, and of course PDF.js which is theoretically able > > to render all PDFs including those generated by pdftex. Both approaches > > give far higher quality output than what any current MathML browser > > implementation offers. > > > > *** > > > > 3. Proposals > > > > Assuming that there will be agreement to drop MathML, I can see us doing > > either of two things: > > > > 3.1. Either just drop MathML support; the assumption would be that > > current solutions not requiring specific browser support, such as MathJax > > or PDF.js, are sufficient; > > > > 3.2. Or drop MathML support and create a new specification, that would > > be based on a suitable subset of TeX. > > > > In both approaches, distributing TeX source code alongside with a page is > > highly desirable because it is the preferred source form of most math > > content and because it enables good accessibility as discussed above. In > > the 3.1 approach, that would be like alt text on images: something that > > many authors would omit in practice. In the 3.2 approach, that would be the > > document itself, which means that it couldn't be neglected. > > > > The big problem with 3.2. is the same issue as we described in 1.1: any > > math-specific system may well be over-specialized. Then again, TeX is not > > exclusively restricted to math typography, and it has been used for e.g. > > music typography before. So to some extent that I haven't precisely figured > > yet, the 1.1 overspecialization against MathML may not fully apply against > > a TeX-based solution. > > > > Benoit _______________________________________________ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
