James Graham wrote:
Is math really a core feature?
Yes, absolutely .. the upcoming microlearning / nanolearning units
inevitably need math.
That's a really particular use case which is hardly representative of
the web as a whole. As sad as it is, 99.9% of authors have no use for
maths (otherwise all these problems would have been solved long ago).
I wouldn't reduce the people from all schools and universities worldwide
to only 0.1%. But obviously I have to accept the view -- or better the
fact -- that today's web is much more commercial than scientific or
educational.
Maths is certainly less of a core feature for most authors than vector
graphics and WHATWG aren't trying to re-implement SVG despite the fact
that it too has no obvious IE6 compatibility story, poor CSS
integration and various other problems.
I wish, that WHATWG would have a similar motivation to offer lightweight
math capabilities parallel to MathML, as they were motivated to support
vector graphics via the <canvas> element parallel to SVG.
Nowhere in the WHATWG document does it say that they're going to try
and fix everything.
Maybe ..
You have to choose your battles and, personally, I agree with the idea
that, if the proponents of CSS-based maths want to work in the
structure of the WHATWG, they should demonstrate the feasibility of
their approach using a microformat. Given the constraints under which
they have chosen to operate it should be possible to do this without
any difficulties. The microformat based approach has several
advantages too, e.g. instant implementation in existing HTML4 UAs (a
new markup language would require changes to the parser). This should
allow the language to evolve as it encounters real-world needs so, if
and when it is formally standardized, it will be a better product than
typically results from an standardization-before-implementation approach.
Assuming the microformat solution will work -- and that it will work is
already proven by George's implementation -- why should there be a
reason then in one, two, three years to substitute the well working
microformats with a new set of math related elements?
