I agree that it's worthwhile to take a step back and consider the bigger picture, but wouldn't a more appropriate discussion for a Wikidata list be -- is there a critical need to represent mathematical notations in Wikidata and, if so, what form should that take?
On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 7:25 PM, Paul Topping <[email protected]> wrote: > Rather than discussing whether MathML is a failed standard, web or > otherwise, I recommend we discuss specific, constructive topics. I suggest > the discussion be in the context of MathML where appropriate, not because I > want to defend MathML but because it is an existing standard. It is a place > to start. If the solutions we reach replace MathML all or in part, so be > it. Let's not start by throwing it out but by addressing its problems. We > can certainly create a new standard if MathML can't be fixed. Finally, if > this is the wrong venue for this topic or any other, please suggest a > better one. If there are other parties that need to know about the > discussion, please let them know. > > Assuming others agree, let’s start with perhaps an important issue. Should > Presentation MathML dictate a specific rendering or leave formatting > choices up to the renderer. Peter says, "I have the impression people > generally expect consistent rendering across browsers. But anecdotal > evidence is, well, anecdotal." I would agree with this statement. People do > expect this. I believe they get that expectation from TeX but it does make > sense. Why would a user want a different rendering in a different browser? > > The reason I said "no" to this before was because the MathML spec leaves a > lot of rendering decisions up to the implementation. Someone reading the > MathML spec should NOT expect all renderings to be the same. In fact, the > spec doesn't specify the rendering at the required level of detail. Doing > so would be difficult. TeX doesn't specify its rendering in detail either > except via the code itself. In other words, the only proper rendering of > TeX is that done by TeX itself. > > We could create a MathML 4 in which the graphical rendering is specified > in writing and in detail. Implementations would be constrained much more > than by the current spec. Another way to achieve this goal is to create a > reference implementation. This would be the TeX way, or close to it. > > We could even map MathML onto TeX somehow and then defer to TeX's > rendering. The MathML spec would be annotated by TeX templates (perhaps > macros) that serve to define the rendering. The reference implementation > would consist of a MathML-to-TeX convertor and the TeX engine itself. > Implementations that intend to abide by the MathML 4 spec could use the > reference implementation or roll their own. > > When I say rendering above, I only mean graphical rendering. When we talk > about audio or braille rendering, things are much less clear. The state of > the art in MathML-to-speech has certainly not reached a point where > everyone can agree. Besides, there is personal taste of the reader and > multiple languages to consider. > > Ok, I'll stop there and take a breath. > > Paul > _______________________________________________ > Wikidata-tech mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-tech >
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