Randall Britten wrote:
> Hi all
>
> Another option to add to the mix: using a Wiki. In this case, I would
> specifically suggest MediaWiki (a la Wikipedia).
>
Hi Randall,
> Pros:
> -Widely used, lots of user familiarity.
>
Although MediaWiki mark-up is similar to MoinMoin and other wiki
software have taken the idea, I am not sure that the exact same markup
is widely used in terms of tool diversity. Wikipedia and other
MediaWiki-powered sites are very popular, so that one particular
software package may have been widely used compared to some of the other
options (although HTML, DocBook, TeX, and ReST are also very ubiquitous).
> -Easy collaboration: edits done via web interface.
>
> -Built in diffs and revision history.
> -Linking when done via web interface works well.
> -Can be rendered as PDF on demand (haven't tested this myself, but docs say
> it can be done).
>
> Cons:
> -Requires setup and maintenance of another content management system.
>
Also note that MediaWiki-style markup has many of the same cons as
reStructuredText
* No section references by number based on reference by name in the
source.
* No automatic numbering aside from numbered lists (e.g. no counters).
> Unsure:
> -Usually Mathml handled with LaTex substrings, not sure how to handle MathML
> in MediaWiki.
>
As Matt said, this is an adequate representation of presentation
mathematics (content mathematics would of course be represented in
literal blocks, so any math representation is probably adequate).
Matt also said "More generally, I think XML source formats should be
avoided if possible". I don't agree with that, because for many
purposes XML does provide a very good compromise between tool simplicity
and human readability, and often the unambiguous and simple rules aid
both human and machine processing of the document. MathML is an example
of where unaided human processing of an XML format becomes unwieldy and
error prone, because the requirement for unambiguous mathematical
mark-up ends making the language too verbose. However the same concerns
don't apply when there are WYSIWYG editors (e.g. for HTML), or where the
mark-up does not have to be so dense (for example, delimiting
paragraphs, but having whole paragraphs as text nodes). In this case you
can feasibly put the tags on their own lines and readability is not that
bad (although following structural changes may be more difficult).
Best regards,
Andrew
> Regards,
> Randall
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:cellml-discussion-
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Alan Garny
>> Sent: Wednesday, 7 November 2007 9:46 p.m.
>> To: 'CellML Discussion List'
>> Subject: Re: [cellml-discussion] Representing the next version of the
>> CellML Specification
>>
>> I don't know much (if anything!) about the solutions offered here, but:
>>
>> - the current HTML version is nice for viewing from a web browser, but
>> if
>> you have ever tried to print things out you will no doubt have noticed
>> that
>> it doesn't look great anymore. I remember that there used to be a
>> 'proper'
>> PDF version of the specifications. I really wish we still had something
>> like
>> that.
>>
>> - Besides the obvious (i.e. easy to use, easy to maintain, well-
>> established
>> technology, etc.), I am not too fussed about the solution we go for, as
>> long
>> as it is suitable for the end user (e.g. looks nice both on and off the
>> web
>> site).
>>
>> This being all said, and based on Andrew's pros/cons, I would
>> personally
>> vote for DocBook.
>>
>> Alan.
>>
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>> cellml-discussion@cellml.org
>> http://www.cellml.org/mailman/listinfo/cellml-discussion
>>
>
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