On Monday, 6 May 2013 01:38:39 UTC+10, 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
I find it extremely disappointing this was posted the *day* after the Slashdot article was published at http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/05/04/0015241/firefox-is-the-first-browser-to-pass-the-mathml-acid2-test Was the real motivation for this thread in any way related to the timing of that story? _______________________________________________ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
