@Mark Just to clarify. Personally, I don't think wikitext's math format should move away from a TeX-like input language. The point I was trying making was that a conservative extension would be useful if MathML becomes a desired output. It seems to me that texvc was specifically designed to prevent fully fledged TeX input, so I wonder if it wouldn't help everyone if wasn't required on the backend anymore, only that the syntax stayed backward compatible.
@paveenp I don't know what you mean by "unsupportably dependent". I am also not aware of "serious bugs". Could you be more specific? Peter. On Fri, Aug 2, 2013 at 10:40 AM, Delirium <delir...@hackish.org> wrote: > On 8/2/13 7:07 PM, praveenp wrote: > >> >> On Friday 02 August 2013 09:06 PM, Delirium wrote: >> >>> On 7/22/13 2:53 AM, Peter Krautzberger wrote: >>> >>>> 2) TeX/LaTeX compatibility might be lost. >>>> >>>> "Native" content (e.g. <maction> or even subexpression links) has no >>>> counterpart in TeX. Conservative extensions of TeX can easily enable >>>> this >>>> kind of content but backward compatibility will be lost. >>>> >>>> >>> If this means MathML as the canonical format, i.e. people write MathML >>> into articles directly, rather than it just being an output/rendering >>> format, that gives me moderate worry: >>> >>> 1. From the perspective of being able to repurpose Wikipedia articles >>> outside of a web context, TeX-format equations are nice for articles in the >>> math/science sphere, since TeX-based publishing workflows are common in >>> math/science, and equations are particularly tedious and error-prone to >>> convert by hand, if that would end up necessary. Admittedly, in some >>> workflows there's no real difference: you can import both MathML and TeX >>> equations into MS Word with appropriate plugins (I haven't looked into >>> whether the two import paths differ on compatibility). Perhaps as >>> HTML-based print workflows improve this will drop off as an issue, but >>> right now only a smallish proportion of people are using workflows based on >>> something like PrinceXML, and the free-software alternatives to PrinceXML >>> are further behind. >>> >>> 2. From a wikitext-readability perspective, TeX-format equations are the >>> de-facto standard way of ASCII-fying equations, e.g. in plaintext emails, >>> while MathML isn't written in a syntax any humans normally write. So using >>> TeX as our underlying representation makes equations possible to edit in >>> text form, at least for people who already professionally work in areas >>> where that's common, while MathML equations virtually require a visual >>> editor (unless the idea is to use something like ASCIIMathML?). >>> >> What??!!?? sorry I didn't get a thing from this. :-) >> >> >> Current scenario is: In our current Math extension, textvc is simply >> unable to generate equations in png except Latin languages. Also Mathjax is >> heavily client dependent (Unsupportably dependent) and has its own serious >> bugs. >> > > I read Peter's point 2 as discussing the possible "native" use of MathML > tags, i.e. permitting people to write MathML into articles, rather than > only using MathML as an alternate rendering path for texvc/MathJax/etc. If > MathML is a render-only target, then "TeX/LaTeX compatibility might be > lost" doesn't seem like it could be an issue. So unless I'm totally > misreading, I took the discussion to be about allowing MathML in articles, > which could break TeX compatibility since not all MathML tags can be > rendered back into TeX equivalents. The two points above are my two > concerns w.r.t. that suggestion. Am I misreading the suggestion entirely? > > -Mark > > > > ______________________________**_________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l<https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l> > _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
