Greetings Racketeers,
For some reason (perhaps because I have nonexistent fine motor skills)
I've always had issues with programs for writing math on the computer.
It seems like most of this software is either overly neglected by its
developers (i.e., it's been in beta or experimental stage for over five
years) or its developers and user base are terrified of any sort of
change (LaTeX, which was designed to run efficiently on education-class
1980's hardware). Based on my biased judgment and possibly arrogant
personal tastes, I strongly believe that functional Lisp semantics would
work well for manipulating and rendering mathematical structures.
S-expressions give us a convenient way to write content-sensitive
mathematics, especially since they give us <apply></apply> for free.
Moreover, any general library for manipulating symbolic math comes in
handy when writing applications, like GUI equation editors, word
processor plugins, and computer algebra systems. In principle, any API
would be simple because \newcommand-style macro substitution could
involve a procedure that reads a hash table of substitution rules based
on s-expressions. A pict (and therefore slideshow) interface might also
be nice.
I've experimented with this a little by myself, but haven't come up with
anything "industrial strength." I'm willing, though, to put a "bounty"
on this because of how much it could benefit myself, people with similar
problems, and math/physics/engineering geeks more generally (I'm sure
some of them have cash to spare, also). If you can make something that
lets me do my analysis and algebra homework in s-expressions then you
get a free friendly morning discussion and coffee (with a doughnut or
large pastry, if you so desire) with me in downtown Berkeley whenever
you're in the area. If you come up with anything nicer then I'll set up
a PayPal account, post some ads in the technical departments at my
school, and we'll talk.
--
Karl Winterling
Skype: karl.winterling
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