Re: [Axiom-developer] document, graphics

[Martin Rubey]

Dear Kai, Bob, *,

Bob McElrath writes:


 > > Suppose we want to support LaTeX as an input syntax for 
 > > HyperDoc pages or something similar (Martin Rubey wants this, as I 
 > > understand). Do we want to put a LaTeX parser into Axiom? Do we want to 
 > > implement one in Javascript? 
 > 
 > This is fundamentally impossible because LaTeX is mathematically amgibuous.
 > e.g.

 >     \int_a^b x d x
 >     \int_a^b d x d x

 > 'd' is a constant.  For that matter presentation MathML is also
 > mathematically ambiguous.  (hence the creation of content mathml and
 > OpenMath)

This is a misunderstanding. What I meant is, that the thing should be able to
*render* LaTeX, just as it renders plain text. No semantics here. I need to be
able to present mathematical formulas in my documentation, no more. MathAction
nearly does this. (Nearly, since $ sometimes has to be escaped, for example)

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 > > I would much prefer to have a different format for HyperDoc pages than
 > > HTML, because HTML doesn't capture the semantics of Axiom or HyperDoc.

What I think is we need ONE thing that replaces

  MathAction

  HyperDoc

  pamphlets (i.e., dvi viewer)

  the graphics viewers.

(I'm perfectly aware of the fact that these four items *seem* to be
fundamentally different, especially the last one. I'm absolutely sure that they
are not.)




Thus, the first step (and I think that it is nearly done), is to define a good
file format, that is able to carry the necessary semantics. Currently we have
three file formats, that are all "similar but different".

As I've tried to explain, I think that it should be possible to use a normal
editor to create a file in this format, and that it should be possible to write
an article. I think that the most accessible format would be LaTeX + special
environments. This would also be most similar to HyperDoc. The reason is that I
don't want to keep two (only syntactically different) versions of my article.

Martin