RE: equation editors and TeX (long) (was "Equation Editor")

[Paul Topping <PaulT mathtype com>]

Martin,

I guess there's affiliation I forgot to mention. I know about MathML also.
I've been on the W3C's Math Working Group for a few years. Another of our
employees, Robert Miner, is also part of that group and used to be
co-chairman.

Paul

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Martin Sevior [mailto:msevior mccubbin ph unimelb edu au]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2000 1:58 AM
> To: Paul Topping
> Cc: 'gnome-components-list gnome org'; 'Sri Ramkrishna'
> Subject: RE: equation editors and TeX (long) (was "Equation Editor")
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, 5 Sep 2000, Paul Topping wrote:
> > 
> > > > > I've thought about your enhanced XML and I don't agree. If 
> > > > > MathML is not
> > > > > sufficiently rich it should be expanded by a standards 
> > > > > committee so that
> > > > > everyone can easily exchange documents. We in Abi already 
> > > > > have export to
> > > > > Latex so this is an easy decision. 
> > > > 
> > > > So, what you are saying is that Gnome/Abiword's word 
> > > processor and equation
> > > > editor will be good for making very basic technical 
> > > documents, but for
> > > > "real" technical work, users should export to LaTeX. That 
> > > really makes me
> > > > sad. If you have set your sights this low, you can 
> > > definitely count me out.
> > > > Say it ain't so.
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Well far be it for me to say what gnome believes but I 
> think Abiword
> > > developrs feel quite strongly about this. We want to be 
> 100% standards
> > > compliant. Think of it as marketing opportunity for you. You 
> > > can offer an
> > > enhanced Math component. I don't think MathML is such a low 
> > > standard. My
> > > course in advanced ElectroDynamics and all of the papers I've 
> > > published
> > > (I'm an experimental Particle Physicist) can be accomodated 
> > > in MathML I
> > > think. Frankly I can't think of the sort of technical work 
> > > that not would
> > > be covered by MathML and I don't want to delay implementing a 
> > > math system
> > > that will accomodate 99.5% of our users with an escape 
> hatch for the
> > > remaining 0.5% while a more advanced system is developed. We 
> > > gain a lot of
> > > momentum and can reuse a lot of code by being Standards 
> > > Compliant. We can
> > > even blame someone else if a users special feature is 
> missing - or we
> > > could direct them to you :-)
> > 
> > In my mind, the question here is not one of standards 
> compliance but of
> > using a standard as it was intended.
> > 
> 
> I've done some more checking and there is a lot of momentum 
> behind MathML.
> Amaya can already directly edit MathML into their web 
> browser. Both IE and
> Mozilla have plans to display MathML. MathML can be directly 
> translated by
> expat 1.1 and libXML 2.0. There a lot of projects to display 
> MathML we can
> borrow code from. MathML 2.0 has just been approved and there 
> is a project
> in Italy to display advanced Math using MathML 2.0. They even 
> have a gtk
> widget to do it. We can steal any or all of this code as it 
> is all GPL or
> freer. In short I am extremely comfortable with MathML as our internal
> representation of Maths in Abiword.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Martin
> 
> 
> 
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