> > At 1:23 AM 1/27/95, Bill Brooks wrote:
> > >
> > >There certainly is a "cross-platform standard for defining an
> > >equation, it's called "LaTeX". I've often wondered why the authors of
> > >HTML just didn't adopt and/or adapt it instead of reinventing the
> > >wheel and coming up with Yet Another Language.
>
> > LaTeX is only one of several mathematical typesetting languages that were
> > studied and considered carefully by Dave Raggett in designing HTML+, and in
> > current work on HTML 3.0. The reason not to use LaTeX (or any other)
> > straight out of the box is that they are all too complex. One of the
> > primary goals of HTML is to balance power with simplicity.
Yes, TeX is complex. This is because typesetting mathematics is complex.
I think if anyone wants to typeset mathematics, they would (or should) not
be surprised to find that there is a great deal more to it than typesetting
text.
> We really are talking about TeX's method of presenting mathematics.
> LaTeX does not really add anything to the math tool box of TeX.
>
> It seems to me that TeX is the standard for representing mathematics in
> a machine independant format. Certainly the American Mathematical
> Society believes this since the journals that they print start out as
> TeX documents. To not use TeX's methods for describing the presentation
> of mathematics really needs to be explained. I am not suggesting that
> there are no compromises to be made in getting the information on the
> screen, but to implement yet another standard to describe mathematical
> notation really should be questioned, especially since the problem has
> been solved so completely already.
Agreed, please explain.
-- Every program has two purposes -- written and another for which it wasn't.Eric D. Hendrickson Damnit! I can't stop the heterocyclic declination! Central Computing Services University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA I came to confess. *I* was the second gunman on the grassy knoll.... <a href="http://www.umn.edu/~edh">Eric.Hendrickson-1@umn.edu</a> 612/626-7761