I told someone they should google my name, belatedly thought to check
the results. I seem to exist only in quotations and sigs, not all of
them from fans. No, this is not immodesty, that would be everything else
I post; for this I have a different ulterior motive.
Now if you'll excuse me I have to go on eBay and find a Kenny Tilton
surf board. Fortune cookie additions (somewhat edited)...
%
Lisp is no longer the crazy aunt in the attic, she is now out in the
front parlor where her admirers come to pay respect and learn.
-- Kenny Tilton in comp.lang.lisp on March 31, 2004:
%
I think it would be harder for a good programmer to change editors than
to change languages. � Kenny Tilton in comp.lang.smalltalk
%
Parentheses? What parentheses? I haven't noticed any parentheses
since my first month of Lisp programming. I like to ask people who
complain about parentheses in Lisp if they are bothered by all the
spaces between words in a newspaper... - Kenny Tilton <····@liii.com>
%
Lisp gives you a kazillion ways to solve a problem. (1- kazillion) of
them are wrong. - Kenny Tilton
%
> Yeah. In case you guys didn't quite get it, this particular site
> targets (among other things) the Turkish lisp effort. Yours truly and
> others have also been accused of being destructive to Turkish youth.
They want you to copy them first?
-- Ken Tilton <·············@fe10.lga>
%
Horse. Cart. Please note order.
-- Ken Tilton <··················@newsfe08.lga>
%
My dream of a Cells consulting business is fading as user after user
turns out to be hindered not at all by my deliberate withholding
of documentation. -- Kenny Tilton in comp.lang.lisp
%
Lisp nearing the age of fifty is the most modern language out
there. GC, dynamic, reflective, the best OO model extant including
GFs, procedural macros, and the only thing old-fashioned about it
is that it is compiled and fast. -- Kenny Tilton, comp.lang.python
%
Eight years to do TeX? How smart can he be? He should have used Lisp.
-- Kenny Tilton, on Donald Knuth
[This one apparently stopped the quoter from trying Lisp.]
%
Yeah, I'm a gifted guru. Since you called me that, I guess
I'll talk to you a little bit. -- Kenny Tilton in comp.lang.lisp
[The quoter suspected irony but finally decided I was serious.]
%
There are no average Lisp programmers. We are the Priesthood.
Offerings of incense or cash will do. � Kenny Tilton at comp.lang.lisp
%
Ken Tilton ha escrito:
> Lisp is no longer the crazy aunt in the attic, she is now out in the
> front parlor where her admirers come to pay respect and learn.
> -- Kenny Tilton in comp.lang.lisp on March 31, 2004:
(joke "She looks as a respectable 50 year old woman, but sometimes with
too much lipstick.")
> I think it would be harder for a good programmer to change editors than
> to change languages. - Kenny Tilton in comp.lang.smalltalk
(joke "except for functional ones where state cannot mutate")
> Parentheses? What parentheses? I haven't noticed any parentheses
> since my first month of Lisp programming. I like to ask people who
> complain about parentheses in Lisp if they are bothered by all the
> spaces between words in a newspaper... - Kenny Tilton <····@liii.com>
(joke "I still do not understand why newbies write their LISP code as
(a b c d) instead using the beatiful pair notation (a.(b.(c.(d.nil))))
")
> Lisp gives you a kazillion ways to solve a problem. (1- kazillion) of
> them are wrong. - Kenny Tilton
(joke " (1- kazillion) --> error ")
> Lisp nearing the age of fifty is the most modern language out
> there. GC, dynamic, reflective, the best OO model extant including
> GFs, procedural macros, and the only thing old-fashioned about it
> is that it is compiled and fast. -- Kenny Tilton, comp.lang.python
(joke "Lisp nearing the age of fifty is the most modern language out
there iff one does not count Lisp itself, which is at least so
modern.")
> Eight years to do TeX? How smart can he be? He should have used Lisp.
> -- Kenny Tilton, on Donald Knuth
(joke :first "Donald Knuth answered: Kenny Tilton? Who is that?")
(joke :second "From OnLisp book: This book was typeset using LATEX, a
language written by Leslie Lamport atop Donald Knuth's TEX.")
> There are no average Lisp programmers. We are the Priesthood.
> Offerings of incense or cash will do. - Kenny Tilton at comp.lang.lisp
(joke "True, there is not average use of LISP. "Many PL are called but
few are chosen to be popular" Matthew 22:14).
Juan R. wrote:
> Ken Tilton ha escrito:
>
>
>>Eight years to do TeX? How smart can he be? He should have used Lisp.
>> -- Kenny Tilton, on Donald Knuth
>
>
> (joke :first "Donald Knuth answered: Kenny Tilton? Who is that?")
A: The guy you f*cked over by recommending Greenspuns' Tenth:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/browse_thread/thread/17bccec3e1c17d96/e16d42fef2191cc1?lnk=st&q=knuth+lisp+kenny&rnum=7&hl=en#e16d42fef2191cc1
kt
--
Algebra: http://www.tilton-technology.com/LispNycAlgebra1.htm
"Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty-five
years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally
won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
"I'll say I'm losing my grip, and it feels terrific."
-- Smiling husband to scowling wife, New Yorker cartoon
Ken Tilton ha escrito:
> Juan R. wrote:
> > Ken Tilton ha escrito:
> >
> >
> >>Eight years to do TeX? How smart can he be? He should have used Lisp.
> >> -- Kenny Tilton, on Donald Knuth
> >
> >
> > (joke :first "Donald Knuth answered: Kenny Tilton? Who is that?")
>
> A: The guy you f*cked over by recommending Greenspuns' Tenth:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/browse_thread/thread/17bccec3e1c17d96/e16d42fef2191cc1?lnk=st&q=knuth+lisp+kenny&rnum=7&hl=en#e16d42fef2191cc1
>
(joke "Donald Knuth answered again: Who? I did not remembering me
writting a check for that kenny")
Juan R. ha escrito:
> Ken Tilton ha escrito:
>
> > Juan R. wrote:
> > > Ken Tilton ha escrito:
> > >
> > >
> > >>Eight years to do TeX? How smart can he be? He should have used Lisp.
> > >> -- Kenny Tilton, on Donald Knuth
> > >
> > >
> > > (joke :first "Donald Knuth answered: Kenny Tilton? Who is that?")
> >
> > A: The guy you f*cked over by recommending Greenspuns' Tenth:
> >
> > http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/browse_thread/thread/17bccec3e1c17d96/e16d42fef2191cc1?lnk=st&q=knuth+lisp+kenny&rnum=7&hl=en#e16d42fef2191cc1
> >
>
> (joke "Donald Knuth answered again: Who? I did not remembering me
> writting a check for that kenny")
Sorry, garbage collection was off
(joke "Donald Knuth again: Who? I do not remember writting a check for
that kenny")
Hi,
I have found those below in my collection.
Is there a good Erik collection somewhere?
Nicolas
(8.10.2005, cll)
Liars need good memories, trolls need NG readers with bad ones.
(7.6.2003, cll)
We all need early warning systems for "they might have heard this a million
times before" remarks. I once destroyed any nano-chance I had with a
stunning, taller woman by asking her how tall she was.
"Six foot two," she replied. "How short are you?"
And finally a cooperation with Fred Gilham:
Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> > Become a celebrity like Kenny Tilton.
>
> I am a simple Lisp programmer.
>
> --
>
> clinisys, inc
> http://www.tilton-technology.com/
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> "I am a simple Buddhist monk. "
> -- Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
On top of everything else, humble too! :-)
--
Fred Gilham ······@csl.sri.com
Nicolas Neuss wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have found those below in my collection.
Thanks, added.
>
> Is there a good Erik collection somewhere?
I seem to recall one. Certainly saw a lot of Erik quotes out there. Good
project. Big project. :) Of course he specialized more in the 500-word
rant than the one-liner, but he was prolific enough to have produced any
of the latter. Hmmm, OK, contributions welcome, I'll start collecting
when I need a break from the astonishing new interactive Algebra I
software I am developing and hope to release at NCTM '2007 in March.*
kenny tilton
* You all thought I was irritating about Cells? This time it is for
money... :) kt
--
Algebra: http://www.tilton-technology.com/LispNycAlgebra1.htm
"Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty-five
years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally
won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
"I'll say I'm losing my grip, and it feels terrific."
-- Smiling husband to scowling wife, New Yorker cartoon
Ken Tilton wrote:
> Nicolas Neuss wrote:
[...]
> > Is there a good Erik collection somewhere?
> I seem to recall one.
You seem to recall correctly:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Naggum
Cheers,
Pillsy
Pillsy wrote:
> Ken Tilton wrote:
>
>
>>Nicolas Neuss wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>>>Is there a good Erik collection somewhere?
>
>
>>I seem to recall one.
>
>
> You seem to recall correctly:
>
> http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Naggum
whew! I think I could work out the travelling salesman thing before I
could collect all his quotes.
kenny
--
Algebra: http://www.tilton-technology.com/LispNycAlgebra1.htm
"Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty-five
years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally
won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
"I'll say I'm losing my grip, and it feels terrific."
-- Smiling husband to scowling wife, New Yorker cartoon
Ken Tilton wrote:
> Eight years to do TeX? How smart can he be? He should have used Lisp.
> -- Kenny Tilton, on Donald Knuth
> [This one apparently stopped the quoter from trying Lisp.]
Eight years to write TeX, which is a system which has had fewer bugs
than almost anything else ... so long as you define `having a fixed
number of registers' as not being a bug. Well, it wouldn't be a bug if
he was designing a microprocessor, I suppose.
Tim Bradshaw wrote:
> Ken Tilton wrote:
>
>
>>Eight years to do TeX? How smart can he be? He should have used Lisp.
>> -- Kenny Tilton, on Donald Knuth
>>[This one apparently stopped the quoter from trying Lisp.]
>
>
> Eight years to write TeX, which is a system which has had fewer bugs
> than almost anything else ... so long as you define `having a fixed
> number of registers' as not being a bug. Well, it wouldn't be a bug if
> he was designing a microprocessor, I suppose.
>
<sigh>Did the requirements change a lot during those eight years? "Don,
old chap, L'Academy Bush has decided text goes right to left, something
about a War on Terror. When can you have that for us?"<\sigh>
<herdingcats>OK, how about "He knew about Lisp and did not use it. Made
a case against it, in fact. How smart can he be?"<\herdingcats>
<sulzberger>It's a <i>batch<\i> program!<\sulzberger>
hth,kenny
--
Algebra: http://www.tilton-technology.com/LispNycAlgebra1.htm
"Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty-five
years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally
won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
"I'll say I'm losing my grip, and it feels terrific."
-- Smiling husband to scowling wife, New Yorker cartoon
Ken Tilton wrote:
>
> <sigh>Did the requirements change a lot during those eight years? "Don,
> old chap, L'Academy Bush has decided text goes right to left, something
> about a War on Terror. When can you have that for us?"<\sigh>
I wasn't arguing that 8 years was not a long time. Quite the opposite,
in fact: it was a very long time to write a program that had a mass of
hard-wired limits in it.
On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 08:49:24 -0800, Tim Bradshaw wrote:
> I wasn't arguing that 8 years was not a long time. Quite the opposite, in
> fact: it was a very long time to write a program that had a mass of
> hard-wired limits in it.
I was under the impression that most of the time was spent figuring out
what it was about type and typesetting that made it look good, rather than
just a coding exercise. And writing about it. It wasn't something that
anyone had done or written about, before.
I can easily imagine it taking eight years to learn all that there is to
know about typography, including font design, and designing a couple of
fonts of my own that looked "right" when printed on a large variety of
raster output devices, with differing white/black "bloom" characteristics
and resolutions. Certainly all of the computer typography systems that
came before, and most of the ones to come after have produced output that
was rubbish, by comparison. I doubt that the actual constraint mechanics
that drive TeX took much of the time at all. The hardwired limits almost
certainly derive from the pre-dynamic dialect of Pascal that he used. Lots
of Fortran programs of the same vintage have hard-coded array sizes, too.
How big and complicated a book do you have to typeset, anyway?
Cheers,
--
Andrew
Andrew Reilly wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 08:49:24 -0800, Tim Bradshaw wrote:
>
>
>>I wasn't arguing that 8 years was not a long time. Quite the opposite, in
>>fact: it was a very long time to write a program that had a mass of
>>hard-wired limits in it.
>
>
> I was under the impression that most of the time was spent figuring out
> what it was about type and typesetting that made it look good, rather than
> just a coding exercise. And writing about it. It wasn't something that
> anyone had done or written about, before.
>
> I can easily imagine it taking eight years to...
Oh sure, and it probably was not heads down eight years... how about
"He not only knows about Lisp and does not use it, but he actually
argues against it? How smart can he be?"?
No, really. How smart can he be? The only defense of his intelligence
(but then not his intellectual integrity) is that his three volumes turn
into a postcard saying "Use Lisp" if he does not pooh-pooh it.
Or he could target his volumes at Lisp /implementors/--no lack of those
from what I can see.
kenny
--
Algebra: http://www.tilton-technology.com/LispNycAlgebra1.htm
"Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty-five
years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally
won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
"I'll say I'm losing my grip, and it feels terrific."
-- Smiling husband to scowling wife, New Yorker cartoon
On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 00:39:50 +0100, Ken Tilton <·········@gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh sure, and it probably was not heads down eight years... how about
>
> "He not only knows about Lisp and does not use it, but he actually
> argues against it? How smart can he be?"?
>
> No, really. How smart can he be? The only defense of his intelligence
> (but then not his intellectual integrity) is that his three volumes turn
> into a postcard saying "Use Lisp" if he does not pooh-pooh it.
>
> Or he could target his volumes at Lisp /implementors/--no lack of those
> from what I can see.
>
> kenny
>
So all programmers that prefer languages other than Lisp are idiots..
That would include Stphen Wolfram that wrote Mathematica in 2 years
singelhandidly I suppose. He also knew Lisp yet wrote the program in
objective C..
I find this argumentation silly.
Is it so hard to accept that preference for a language can be a question
of taste?
That not all C++ programmers are idiots or Lisp programmers Geniouses..
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
John Thingstad wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 00:39:50 +0100, Ken Tilton <·········@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Oh sure, and it probably was not heads down eight years... how about
>>
>> "He not only knows about Lisp and does not use it, but he actually
>> argues against it? How smart can he be?"?
>>
>> No, really. How smart can he be? The only defense of his intelligence
>> (but then not his intellectual integrity) is that his three volumes
>> turn into a postcard saying "Use Lisp" if he does not pooh-pooh it.
>>
>> Or he could target his volumes at Lisp /implementors/--no lack of
>> those from what I can see.
>>
>> kenny
>>
>
> So all programmers that prefer languages other than Lisp are idiots..
Why do you say that? (I didn't.)
> That would include Stphen Wolfram that wrote Mathematica in 2 years
> singelhandidly I suppose. He also knew Lisp yet wrote the program in
> objective C..
>
> I find this argumentation silly.
I find Wolfram as an example of a non-idiot silly.
> Is it so hard to accept that preference for a language can be a
> question of taste?
Only if the other language is a lisp.
> That not all C++ programmers are idiots or Lisp programmers Geniouses..
>
Or good spellers.
kenny
--
Algebra: http://www.tilton-technology.com/LispNycAlgebra1.htm
"Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty-five
years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally
won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
"I'll say I'm losing my grip, and it feels terrific."
-- Smiling husband to scowling wife, New Yorker cartoon
Juan R. wrote:
> Ken Tilton ha escrito:
> > I find Wolfram as an example of a non-idiot silly.
> On the core of Mathematica you can find a comment saying
> Ken tilton? who?
Just because Wolfram is a really smart guy (with some really strange
ideas) doesn't mean that Mathematica is pretty much the epitome of
Greenspun's Tenth Law, even going so far as to have a syntax that
resembles nothing so much as McCarthy's m-expression syntax.
It's a shame that while he was busy implement so many other parts of
Lisp, he forgot about "cons", though. If I had a nickel for every time
I had to gratuitously flatten one of Mathematica's "lists"....
Cheers,
Pillsy
Pillsy ha escrito:
> Juan R. wrote:
>
> > Ken Tilton ha escrito:
>
> > > I find Wolfram as an example of a non-idiot silly.
>
> > On the core of Mathematica you can find a comment saying
>
> > Ken tilton? who?
>
> Just because Wolfram is a really smart guy (with some really strange
> ideas) doesn't mean that Mathematica is pretty much the epitome of
> Greenspun's Tenth Law, even going so far as to have a syntax that
> resembles nothing so much as McCarthy's m-expression syntax.
Sure he did mistakes, as anyone in this world, no?
> It's a shame that while he was busy implement so many other parts of
> Lisp, he forgot about "cons", though. If I had a nickel for every time
> I had to gratuitously flatten one of Mathematica's "lists"....
And then attitudes as that of above of Tilton are ok, no?
Juan R. wrote:
> Pillsy ha escrito:
[...]
> > Just because Wolfram is a really smart guy (with some really strange
> > ideas) doesn't mean that Mathematica is pretty much the epitome of
> > Greenspun's Tenth Law, even going so far as to have a syntax that
> > resembles nothing so much as McCarthy's m-expression syntax.
> Sure he did mistakes, as anyone in this world, no?
Well, yes. And Wolfram made some mistakes that would have been entirely
avoided if he'd just used Lisp in the first place.
> > It's a shame that while he was busy implement so many other parts of
> > Lisp, he forgot about "cons", though. If I had a nickel for every time
> > I had to gratuitously flatten one of Mathematica's "lists"....
> And then attitudes as that of above of Tilton are ok, no?
Tilton says it's silly to implement a dodgy quasi-Lisp instead of using
an existing Lisp implementations. I don't see what's *not* OK about
that attitude.
Cheers, Pillsy
Pillsy ha escrito:
> Well, yes. And Wolfram made some mistakes that would have been entirely
> avoided if he'd just used Lisp in the first place.
Substitute "Wolfram" --> "Tilton" and "Lisp" --> "other language" and i
think that also agree.
> > And then attitudes as that of above of Tilton are ok, no?
>
> Tilton says it's silly to implement a dodgy quasi-Lisp instead of using
> an existing Lisp implementations. I don't see what's *not* OK about
> that attitude.
The double attitude "LISP vs. the rest", the tone on writting...
John Thingstad wrote:
> So all programmers that prefer languages other than Lisp are idiots..
> That would include Stphen Wolfram that wrote Mathematica in 2 years
> singelhandidly I suppose. He also knew Lisp yet wrote the program in
> objective C..
This was not my intent, at least. I don't really care what language
Knuth wrote TeX in. I'm happy to believe he's a very brilliant man.
However a good software designer he is not.
From: ···············@space.at
Subject: Re: What about these?
Date:
Message-ID: <u3b798fql.fsf@space.at>
>>>>> "Ken" == Ken Tilton <·········@gmail.com> writes:
[why Knuth took 8 years to write TeX (and METAFONT, Computer Modern
fonts, books about all these)...]
Ken> Oh sure, and it probably was not heads down eight
Ken> years... how about
Ken> "He not only knows about Lisp and does not use it, but he
Ken> actually argues against it? How smart can he be?"?
You might want to read
http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb26-1/beebe.pdf
for some of the reasons of using Pascal (for the rewrite, the first
version was written in SAIL (Stanford AI Lab/Language). Another
interesting article is "The Errors of TeX" which contains a detailed
log describing the debugging TeX.
Ken> No, really. How smart can he be? The only defense of his
Ken> intelligence (but then not his intellectual integrity) is
Ken> that his three volumes turn into a postcard saying "Use Lisp"
Ken> if he does not pooh-pooh it.
I missed the quote where Knuth pooh-poohed Lisp.
Ken> Or he could target his volumes at Lisp /implementors/--no
Ken> lack of those from what I can see.
How many Lisp implementation were available in 1982?
Merry Christmas to all Lispniks
Roland
···············@space.at wrote:
>
> How many Lisp implementation were available in 1982?
Loads. It is the second oldest language still in common use, after all.
Tim Bradshaw wrote, On 22/12/06 4:39 AM:
> ···············@space.at wrote:
>> How many Lisp implementation were available in 1982?
>
> Loads. It is the second oldest language still in common use, after all.
That was part of the problem. He needed one language dialect on many
platforms, not many Lisp dialects. And 1982 is too late, he started TeX
in September 1976. From an article on the history of TeX and Metafont
http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb26-1/beebe.pdf
"LISP would have been attractive and powerful,
and in retrospect, would have made TEX and METAFONT
far more extensible than they are, because
any part of them could have been rewritten in LISP,
and they would not have needed to have macro
languages at all! Unfortunately, until the advent of
COMMON LISP in 1984 [96, 97], and for some time
after, the LISP world suffered from having about
as many dialects as there were LISP programmers,
making it impossible to select a language flavor that
worked everywhere.
The only viable approach would have been to
write a LISP compiler or interpreter, bringing one
back to the original problem of picking a language
to write that in. The one point in favor of this approach
is that LISP is syntactically the simplest of all
programming languages, so workable interpreters
could be done in a few hundred lines, instead of the
10K to 100K lines that were needed for languages
like PASCAL and FORTRAN. However, we have to
remember that computer use cost a lot of money,
and comparatively few people outside computer science
departments had the luxury of ignoring the
substantial run-time costs of interpreted languages.
A typesetting system is expected to receive heavy
use, and efficiency and fast turnaround are essential."
Note that the quoted text does _not_ repeat the myth that Lisp must be
slow because it is interpreted. I read it that way the first time, but
then realized that is is saying that it would have been easy to quickly
write a portable interpreter but _that_ would have run too slow.
--
Sidney Markowitz
http://www.sidney.com
Andrew Reilly wrote:
>
> I was under the impression that most of the time was spent figuring out
> what it was about type and typesetting that made it look good, rather than
> just a coding exercise. And writing about it. It wasn't something that
> anyone had done or written about, before.
Yes, I agree with this, and TeX's achievement in terms of computer
typography is non-trivial: it really changed the landscape of computer
typesetting for ever, and I don't think has really been matched even
now, almost 30 years (from the first version) later. One should not
belittle that (any more than one should belittle, say Unix).
I think it's achievement *as a system* is far less.
--tim
Tim Bradshaw ha escrito:
> Yes, I agree with this, and TeX's achievement in terms of computer
> typography is non-trivial: it really changed the landscape of computer
> typesetting for ever, and I don't think has really been matched even
> now, almost 30 years (from the first version) later.
For typesetting on fixed layout using predefined font metrics? Sure (if
one agrees on TeX conventions).
For liquid layouts or usage of arbitrary non-TeX fonts? TeX does not
work.
Also TeX is too black and white. Some simple extensions add \color{}.
Juan R. wrote:
> For typesetting on fixed layout using predefined font metrics? Sure (if
> one agrees on TeX conventions).
For actually doing a decent job of breaking lines automatically,
respecting hundreds of years of experience in how this should be done.
No other system I know of does as good a job (and if they do I bet they
use TeX's way of doing it).
>
> For liquid layouts or usage of arbitrary non-TeX fonts? TeX does not
> work.
Well, yes, you do need to tell it about the metrics. But, well, what
did you expect to be the case?
Tim Bradshaw ha escrito:
> Juan R. wrote:
>
> > For typesetting on fixed layout using predefined font metrics? Sure (if
> > one agrees on TeX conventions).
>
> For actually doing a decent job of breaking lines automatically,
> respecting hundreds of years of experience in how this should be done.
> No other system I know of does as good a job (and if they do I bet they
> use TeX's way of doing it).
Since TeX does not correctly encodes structure of formulae it was
explicitely rejected as model for online Maths: e.g. MathML.
Capabilities of new OMML for linebreaking math are very interesting.
> >
> > For liquid layouts or usage of arbitrary non-TeX fonts? TeX does not
> > work.
>
> Well, yes, you do need to tell it about the metrics. But, well, what
> did you expect to be the case?
I want to format \frac{a+b}{2} without needing a special font, less
still a very boring TeX font was designed for paper. Knuth did was
brilliant but is nothing compared with research on typesseting without
rely on a collection of predefined static fonts.
Juan R. wrote:
>
>
> Since TeX does not correctly encodes structure of formulae it was
> explicitely rejected as model for online Maths: e.g. MathML.
Typography is not semantic or syntactic markup.
> I want to format \frac{a+b}{2} without needing a special font,
Sigh. I used to work for a mathematical publishing house, and you're a
fuckwit. Why do I bother even replying? Must be the whisky, or maybe
the drugs.
Tim Bradshaw ha escrito:
> Juan R. wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Since TeX does not correctly encodes structure of formulae it was
> > explicitely rejected as model for online Maths: e.g. MathML.
>
> Typography is not semantic or syntactic markup.
Electronic publishing is different. TeX cannot be used for electronic
publishing and is _not_. Therein MathML folks rejected TeX and
developed presentation MathML.
As LaTeX guru D. Carlisle (MathML folk) says: mathematicians need to
update outside of TeX/LaTeX.
> > I want to format \frac{a+b}{2} without needing a special font,
>
> Sigh. I used to work for a mathematical publishing house, and you're a
> fuckwit. Why do I bother even replying? Must be the whisky, or maybe
> the drugs.
Obiously you are missing the point, sorry maybe is the whisky, or the
drugs or both :]
TeX engine follows a metric procedure is unnecesarily complex for
80-90% of cases. Today, we can render, fractions of arbitrary nested
level, super and subscripts, matrices, determinants, generic markers,
over and underlines and other stuff WITHOUT relying on fixed size
fonts, fixed layouts, predefined fonts...
There are problems with radicals signs, arbitrary stretchy delimiters
and some others, but there is research.
I can do that selecting a Arial, Times or Comic Sans font. I can resize
my browser, can print, can change font on the fly, can copy and paste,
do animations... Can you?
Example, \frac{a+b}{2}
In TeX:
- Tokenize [a] [+] [b] [2]
- Compute size for each token reading metrics for the font you
previously selected
- Render for layout you previously selected, positioning each token and
group according to metric information, parameters for layout, etc.
Static. Need of a special font containing metric information: e.g. what
is the widht of a in that font. If you change the font-type or the
font-size or resize the viewport. The process would begin again.
In CSS-Math, CanonML ...
- Parse --> [fraction [num a + b] [den 2]]
Position each box according to box model used, e.g. CSS model, FO
model...
No need for reading metrics for a preslected font, therefore works for
any font. The computation of box size and positions is done
automatically, without need to enter metric information to the engine.
Change font size from 10pt to 14 pt, the fraction automatically
re-render. Now change font from Arial to Verdana, the fraction
rendering is updated.
Another example matrices. In TeX the size of matrix is computed from
size of each component (according to a predefined font-family and
size), next using metric information fragment delimiters are put one
below other util the whole size of the fraction filled.
We no do not use fragments, no need for computing the size of a "|"
fragment (is font dependent) for obtaining how many | i would put for a
large
/
|
|
|
\
Have a nice JB!
> Another example matrices. In TeX the size of matrix is computed from
> size of each component (according to a predefined font-family and
> size), next using metric information fragment delimiters are put one
> below other util the whole size of the fraction filled.
below other until the whole size of the matrix is filled.
"Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
I don't know if you are being intentionally dense or are just missing
the point of a lot of this. One major difference is that you are
comparing the entire encoding and rendering part of TeX with just the
encoding part of MathML. You ignore the internals of the rendering.
When you consider everything, it isn't quite so different. But that
undercuts your argument.
> Tim Bradshaw ha escrito:
>
> TeX engine follows a metric procedure is unnecesarily complex for
> 80-90% of cases. Today, we can render, fractions of arbitrary nested
> level, super and subscripts, matrices, determinants, generic markers,
> over and underlines and other stuff WITHOUT relying on fixed size
> fonts, fixed layouts, predefined fonts...
Well, so can TeX. In fact, TeX didn't rely on fixed size fonts. It
was able (via MetaFont) to generate whatever font it needed. I think it
was also the first to include what is now know as "optical scaling" to
fonts.
> There are problems with radicals signs, arbitrary stretchy delimiters
> and some others, but there is research.
But you will admit, that this is an area that TeX has solved.
> I can do that selecting a Arial, Times or Comic Sans font. I can resize
> my browser, can print, can change font on the fly, can copy and paste,
> do animations... Can you?
Hmmm. You must have a different version of Comic Sans than I have. My
version is missing all sorts of specialized mathematical symbols. I see
a delta, but no del. No curl, not existential or universal
quantifiers. If I want those, I have to you the Symbol font instead,
and there's really only one of them.
I suppose going to a full Unicode font helps out a bit here, but there
aren't that many around that have the full set of characters. So
although you in principle have a large choice of fonts, you are
required to know (as the end user, no less) a lot more about the
contents of the font, or else you end up with either missing characters
or lots of tall, skinny boxes.
It is true that the math fonts on TeX are somewhat more limited, but it
does have a nice "out of the box" feel to it.
> Example, \frac{a+b}{2}
>
> In TeX:
>
> - Tokenize [a] [+] [b] [2]
> - Compute size for each token reading metrics for the font you
> previously selected
> - Render for layout you previously selected, positioning each token and
> group according to metric information, parameters for layout, etc.
>
> Static. Need of a special font containing metric information: e.g. what
> is the widht of a in that font. If you change the font-type or the
> font-size or resize the viewport. The process would begin again.
Well, all fonts contain metric information. Even the ones that MathML
ultimately uses to do the rendering.
> In CSS-Math, CanonML ...
>
> - Parse --> [fraction [num a + b] [den 2]]
>
> Position each box according to box model used, e.g. CSS model, FO
> model...
Oddly enough, that is exactly how TeX builds up its pages. It uses a
box model and connects the boxes using stretchy glue.
> No need for reading metrics for a preslected font, therefore works for
> any font. The computation of box size and positions is done
> automatically, without need to enter metric information to the engine.
This is completely bogus.
The rendering engine for MathML needs to read the font metric
information, or else it would have no way to know what size to make the
boxes that contain the characters. Again, you either have no conception
of how the rendering engine in the browser works, or you are
deliberately ignore that stage of the processing.
> Change font size from 10pt to 14 pt, the fraction automatically
> re-render. Now change font from Arial to Verdana, the fraction
> rendering is updated.
And all of this without reading the font metrics? Come on, now.
If you change the font, you end up re-rendering. In TeX, if you change
the font, you also end up re-rendering. What's the difference? There
isn't one. It is just that the normal workflow for TeX is to do the
rendering earlier in the process.
If your web browser had a TeX rendering engine, then it could take the
TeX as input and achieve the same effect.
> Another example matrices. In TeX the size of matrix is computed from
> size of each component (according to a predefined font-family and
> size), next using metric information fragment delimiters are put one
> below other util the whole size of the fraction filled.
And this lets it figure out how to render things in a given amount of
space, while minimizing the need to use extra lines, etc. Of course, if
you are willing to use an effectively infinite canvas (and don't mind
scrolling), you don't have to worry about things like that.
> We no do not use fragments, no need for computing the size of a "|"
> fragment (is font dependent) for obtaining how many | i would put for a
> large
>
> /
> |
> |
> |
> \
>
> Have a nice JB!
Well, does it matter if you do your computation up front or on the fly?
It's still the same computation. The problem with doing it using a
greedy algorithm is that you get greedy algorithm results. You can't
decide that to make it fit better, you should squeeze or expand things
just a little bit. Doing that requires pre-computation and sometimes
backtracking. But greedy algorithms don't backtrack.
That's the fundamental reason why TeX does a much better job of
paragraph typesetting than Word, or things like Word. It is a
fundamental characteristic of the algorithm class that is being used.
--
Thomas A. Russ, USC/Information Sciences Institute
Thomas A. Russ ha escrito:
> "Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
>
> I don't know if you are being intentionally dense or are just missing
> the point of a lot of this. One major difference is that you are
> comparing the entire encoding and rendering part of TeX with just the
> encoding part of MathML. You ignore the internals of the rendering.
> When you consider everything, it isn't quite so different. But that
> undercuts your argument.
When i cited MathML i was comparing it basically with the TeX language.
When i talked about rendering thechniques i was refering to TeX engine
+ TeX fonts.
> > TeX engine follows a metric procedure is unnecesarily complex for
> > 80-90% of cases. Today, we can render, fractions of arbitrary nested
> > level, super and subscripts, matrices, determinants, generic markers,
> > over and underlines and other stuff WITHOUT relying on fixed size
> > fonts, fixed layouts, predefined fonts...
>
> Well, so can TeX.
No cannot you are not reading (i.e. misunderstanding) i wrote.
> In fact, TeX didn't rely on fixed size fonts.
True, also printing on paper do not rely on a fixed font size, but when
someone says that one of differences between HTML publishing and paper
publishing is in that HTML format does not rely on a fixed font size,
refers to static vs dinamic types of publication.
I do not understand why you insist on misunderstanding those points.
Print on paper is usually considered to be a static media still anyone
knows that you always can change a document and print it again. But
that is not called "dinamic".
> It
> was able (via MetaFont) to generate whatever font it needed. I think it
> was also the first to include what is now know as "optical scaling" to
> fonts.
There is an entire world beyond MetaFont and TeX fonts. Precisely the
tendency on TeX comunity is to avoid old TeX engine and the TeX font
model, embracing modern font technologies.
> > There are problems with radicals signs, arbitrary stretchy delimiters
> > and some others, but there is research.
>
> But you will admit, that this is an area that TeX has solved.
In a 'simple' and 'trivial' way, yes. We could copy today TeX way to
render radicals, it is not difficult, but that obligate to predefined
knowledge of font metrics and other stuff is not very interesting for
e-publishing. Therein we are doing research. The same for strechy.
> > I can do that selecting a Arial, Times or Comic Sans font. I can resize
> > my browser, can print, can change font on the fly, can copy and paste,
> > do animations... Can you?
>
> Hmmm. You must have a different version of Comic Sans than I have. My
> version is missing all sorts of specialized mathematical symbols. I see
> a delta, but no del. No curl, not existential or universal
> quantifiers. If I want those, I have to you the Symbol font instead,
> and there's really only one of them.
I would remember this when preparing an educative article for
schoolboys. No wait, the level of math needed there does ok selecting
the Comic.
> I suppose going to a full Unicode font helps out a bit here, but there
> aren't that many around that have the full set of characters.
Yes Unicode fonts are a BIG. No strange so many attempts to actualize
TeX to Unicode. Something last way i looked was been not achieved with
Omega and others new 'TeXs'.
> So
> although you in principle have a large choice of fonts, you are
> required to know (as the end user, no less) a lot more about the
> contents of the font, or else you end up with either missing characters
> or lots of tall, skinny boxes.
>
> It is true that the math fonts on TeX are somewhat more limited, but it
> does have a nice "out of the box" feel to it.
>
> > Example, \frac{a+b}{2}
> >
> > In TeX:
> >
> > - Tokenize [a] [+] [b] [2]
> > - Compute size for each token reading metrics for the font you
> > previously selected
> > - Render for layout you previously selected, positioning each token and
> > group according to metric information, parameters for layout, etc.
> >
> > Static. Need of a special font containing metric information: e.g. what
> > is the widht of a in that font. If you change the font-type or the
> > font-size or resize the viewport. The process would begin again.
>
> Well, all fonts contain metric information. Even the ones that MathML
> ultimately uses to do the rendering.
I try to explain again for you. I do not need a precise knowledge of
details of the font for precise positioning and layout of most of math.
This kind of approach also work for images. I can do a fraction where
denominator is an image or a html input form. Not detailed knowledge of
the interior of the box is needed for the formatting. This simplifies a
lot of the engine and also the files can be several order of magnitude
simpler that similar approaches using a TeX like way.
> > In CSS-Math, CanonML ...
> >
> > - Parse --> [fraction [num a + b] [den 2]]
> >
> > Position each box according to box model used, e.g. CSS model, FO
> > model...
>
> Oddly enough, that is exactly how TeX builds up its pages. It uses a
> box model and connects the boxes using stretchy glue.
Wow! True? Now understand those horizontal and vertical boxes on TeX...
:]
All those years thinking that TeX glue was for the ink :]
> > No need for reading metrics for a preslected font, therefore works for
> > any font. The computation of box size and positions is done
> > automatically, without need to enter metric information to the engine.
>
> This is completely bogus.
> The rendering engine for MathML needs to read the font metric
> information,
What kind of metric information? Precisely main criticism to Gecko
based browsers is that MathML is implemented over a TeX-like engine
using the TeX-fonts. This is considered to be a incorrect choice.
> or else
Hum!
> it would have no way to know what size to make the
> boxes that contain the characters.
True, one needs to know size for positioning and layout, but there is
not reason for follow TeX. How many times i may repeat this.
> Again, you either have no conception
> of how the rendering engine in the browser works, or you are
> deliberately ignore that stage of the processing.
Since you know everithing and are to clever, please explain me next.
You want to do a new font called Russ fonts. But you wannot do a TT
font but just a collection of GIF images [*].
Then you generate gliphs and i could still render maths with that:
fractions, Tensors, matrices... Yes i need box size for each gliph, but
that is not font metric information. I use box size and if you compute
that information from font metrics OR any other method (e.g.
offset-heigh PIXEL method) is of no importance for me.
At current state we cannot render correctly hats and other
embellishments (well it is possible but with low quality), but there
are techniques for precise positioning when talking directly with the
OS. Those techniques do not use TeX rules.
> If your web browser had a TeX rendering engine, then it could take the
> TeX as input and achieve the same effect.
I wonder why TeX browsers miserably failed.
> > We no do not use fragments, no need for computing the size of a "|"
> > fragment (is font dependent) for obtaining how many | i would put for a
> > large
> >
> > /
> > |
> > |
> > |
> > \
> Well, does it matter if you do your computation up front or on the fly?
> It's still the same computation.
Completely wrong. Absolutely no metric information enter on the engine
when rendering the delimiter. If you are delimiting a matrix with font
numbers, then _some_ metric was used by the engine for computing the
size of the body being delimited. But substitute fonts by JPEG images
of different types of cars, and then ***no** font metric information
enter on the engine. Let me repeat again, i render the matrix and the
delimiters with zero font metric information [**].
In TeX, if you were to render a 2x2 matrix of four images of cars,
delimiting it with stretchy parentheses, you would preselect a font,
the TeX engine would read font metrics for that font and next to
construct the delimiter piece by piece "\" + n "|" + "/".
Similar stuff applies to other constructs as the radical sign.
I wait do not write again about this.
[*] Imagine you want to do this because -as previously said- you mixed
drugs with wiskey
[**] There is another version under research where you need some metric
information but much less metric information that is needed in TeX
system. One advantage of this alternative is leave you using anything
as delimiter: images, arrows, forms, any Unicode character.
On Sat, 23 Dec 2006 03:14:39 -0800, Juan R. wrote:
On the one hand you say:
> I can do a fraction where
> denominator is an image or a html input form. Not detailed knowledge of
> the interior of the box is needed for the formatting.
and a little later say:
> True, one needs to know size for positioning and layout, but there is
> not reason for follow TeX. How many times i may repeat this.
You need to repeat it until you can explain the part where you need to
know the size to do the layout, but you don't need to know the size
(metrics) of the fonts that you're laying out. Makes no sense to me.
If you're saying "well, fonts are scalable, we can just scrunch them down
to fit into this box of arbitrary size, like we can scale an image", then
I must expect that the resulting equation will look like rubbish.
Later on you talk about using un-hinted images as glyphs. Groan. We're
never going to get nice (i.e., not worse than TeX) equation rendering on
the web, are we? No, we're going to get equations that look like
newspaper-cutout ransom notes. PDFs will have to do...
You made a big deal about being able to automatically split equations
across lines automatically. That seems like a hard problem. Until
I've seen it done, I think I'd prefer to leave it to the human who's
writing the equation.
Cheers,
--
Andrew
Andrew Reilly ha escrito:
> On Sat, 23 Dec 2006 03:14:39 -0800, Juan R. wrote:
>
> On the one hand you say:
>
> > I can do a fraction where
> > denominator is an image or a html input form. Not detailed knowledge of
> > the interior of the box is needed for the formatting.
>
> and a little later say:
>
> > True, one needs to know size for positioning and layout, but there is
> > not reason for follow TeX. How many times i may repeat this.
>
> You need to repeat it until you can explain the part where you need to
> know the size to do the layout, but you don't need to know the size
> (metrics) of the fonts that you're laying out.
When adjusting \hat{b}, in TeX, the engine reads detailed metric
information for the font and if is \hat{b} or \hat{a} it uses metric
information encoded on the font encoded on a and encoded on b for
positioning the embellishment. The size of the box enclosing a or b is
the same, but a upper part of the box for a is empty and TeX puts the
hat lower thanks to knowledge of fonts metric information.
The point is that you can render \hat{*} for * anything character
without font metrics saying you for instance the high of the character
b > a. Using 'offseft' techniques. This is not achieved with TeX engine
not TeX rules. MathML in Gecko engine uses TeX system and TeX fonts and
therein is so critiqued and limited. If you do not previously dowload
and install TeX fonts you cannot render many math on Firefox browsers
for instance, but there is not need to follow that way.
For roots, fences and so on, a number of different techniques using
_zero_ metric information from fonts (unless TeX needing detailed
knowledge of fences pieces) is being developed (no from me but from
certain organizations and browsers).
> Makes no sense to me.
No problem whereas computer can understand and render; and it does, and
in a few cases looks better than browsers using TeX engine and fonts.
For instance, some TeX engines usually puts too space between numerator
and fraction lines and stuff as pi \over 2 looks a bit distorted.
> Later on you talk about using un-hinted images as glyphs. Groan. We're
> never going to get nice (i.e., not worse than TeX) equation rendering on
> the web, are we?
I know people who think that MathML looks nice than TeX. I personally
hates some TeX conventions.
it looks bad for me when supercripts are not vertically aligned on f^2
fx_^2 but 2 is more above on the second because of the subscript. I
find more nice
2 2
f f
x
that output generated by some TeX engines: Gecko for instance.
> You
Would be you and W3C, ECMA, ISO people and even Microsoft equation
people.
> made a big deal about being able to automatically split equations
> across lines automatically. That seems like a hard problem. Until
> I've seen it done, I think I'd prefer to leave it to the human who's
> writing the equation.
The problems is that human does not know what will be the fon-size,
font family and viewport of the user. In TeX, this is easy because
everything is static and predefined, therefore you can automatically
split equations and generate the pdf for arxiv.
Juan R. ha escrito:
The problems is that human does not know what will be the font-size,
font-family and viewport of the user. In TeX, this is easy because
everything is static and predefined, therefore you can personally
split large equations into several lines and generate the pdf for
arxiv.
The large equations splinted in several lines will look ok for all
users, not because Tex is fantastic here, but because a predefined
static layout was choosed and because PDF usage. That does not work for
the web. TeX does not work for liquid layouts and arbitrary user
selections/preferences.
Also TeX lacks features for rendering math as prescript model.
Currently being simulated as {}_^ but this is very weird, specially for
the web is not just rendering, structure is a point also. Therein any
other modern system (even 2007 version of the MSWord!) has a specific
model for encoding and rendering prescripts.
The problems is that human does not know what will be the font-size,
font-family and viewport of the user. In TeX, this is easy because
everything is static and predefined, therefore you can personally
split large equations into several lines and generate the pdf for
arxiv.
The large equations splinted in several lines will look ok for all
users, not because Tex is fantastic here, but because a predefined
static layout was choosed and because PDF usage. That does not work for
the web. TeX does not work for liquid layouts and arbitrary user
selections/preferences.
Also TeX lacks features for rendering math as prescript model.
Currently being simulated as {}_^ but this is very weird, specially for
the web is not just rendering, structure is a point also. Therein any
other modern system (even 2007 version of the MSWord!) has a specific
model for encoding and rendering prescripts.
On Fri, 22 Dec 2006 11:04:54 +0100, Juan R.
<··············@canonicalscience.com> wrote:
>
> Tim Bradshaw ha escrito:
>
>> Juan R. wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> > Since TeX does not correctly encodes structure of formulae it was
>> > explicitely rejected as model for online Maths: e.g. MathML.
>>
>> Typography is not semantic or syntactic markup.
>
> Electronic publishing is different. TeX cannot be used for electronic
> publishing and is _not_. Therein MathML folks rejected TeX and
> developed presentation MathML.
Complete rubbish. Most scientific and math reports are written in LaTeX
and distributed on the net.
If you don't believe me check out xxx.lanl.gov
There is also a converter from TeX to HTML.
> TeX engine follows a metric procedure is unnecessary complex for
> 80-90% of cases. Today, we can render, fractions of arbitrary nested
> level, super and subscripts, matrices, determinants, generic markers,
> over and underlines and other stuff WITHOUT relying on fixed size
> fonts, fixed layouts, predefined fonts...
That's not good enough and one of the reasons LaTeX is still used.
I've written reports on Super-String and quite francly LaTeX was the
only program that could handle the syntax.
Would you use a car that worked 9 days of of 10 if a reliable
one existed.
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
John Thingstad ha escrito:
> > Electronic publishing is different. TeX cannot be used for electronic
> > publishing and is _not_. Therein MathML folks rejected TeX and
> > developed presentation MathML.
>
> Complete rubbish.
How many idiots use those words?
> Most scientific and math reports are written in LaTeX
> and distributed on the net.
> If you don't believe me check out xxx.lanl.gov
You say is plain wrong. I was talking about electronic publishing (in a
broad sense). PDF or (ps source files) being distributed on arxiv and
similar repositories is not precisely electronic publishing in the
sense i was talking about. Electronic publishing does uses of a lot of
advanced concepts for the neologism of datument, next way to scientific
publishing.
A true electronic journal is not one with PDF copies of the traditional
paper journal you can order from a web page!
Whereas PDF files are electronic (as ps are), they are optimized for
off-line printing. There is a common misconception PDF files are
suitable for online reading.
30% of my colleagues never used TeX and 80% submit papers on Word
format directly. TeX is very popular for physicists and mathematicians
but even Physical Review already admits submision of papers in Word
format today.
TeX is _not_ suitable for electronic (including online) publising.
Since you are rapid to using "Complete rubbish" let me minimize your
ignorance a bit. From the w3c faq on maths:
---
Backwards compatibility - Why has MathML not reused TeX/LaTeX, or the
SGML DTDs ISO 12083 or AAP Math ?
TeX and LaTeX are very widely used for encoding mathematical
expressions. However, they encode only the surface presentation of an
expression, and do not encode either semantic information or structural
information. One of the WG goals is to provide a presentation mechanism
that not only has the expressive capabilities of TeX, but also has
enough information in it so that the presentation is:
* accessible to the visually impaired;
* capable of doing a good job of linebreaking expressions, since
the author can not know the window size and font size in which the
MathML should render.
---
There exist other limitations of TeX are not cited in the faq [1];
reason there is not a TeX web; reason journal documents are not stored
in TeX; they usually use SGML or XML. Largest academic publisher
(Elsevier) switch to XML format some years ago, Nature still uses SGML
(from memory).
> There is also a converter from TeX to HTML.
I know how crapy code they can generate.
I still remember a recent LaTeX to XHTML conversor, -currently used in
certain electronic (no just PDF copies) journal on relativity- doing
all class of nonsense as encoding authors and datas as headings of
level three. Or encoding relativist elements of line as 2 s ds instead
(ds)^2. Inefficiency of the LaTeX (read faq above) is part of reason
for this. Visually the differential looks correct, but the source code
is wrong and is because TeX encodes only the ***surface*** presentation
of an expression.
> > TeX engine follows a metric procedure is unnecessary complex for
> > 80-90% of cases. Today, we can render, fractions of arbitrary nested
> > level, super and subscripts, matrices, determinants, generic markers,
> > over and underlines and other stuff WITHOUT relying on fixed size
> > fonts, fixed layouts, predefined fonts...
>
> That's not good enough and one of the reasons LaTeX is still used.
Do you know that a 80-20 technology is? 90% of mathematics do not need
of TeX metric approach. The goal is to provide a 100% coverage of
presentation MathML (is more than TeX/LaTeX). But if technical
difficulties cannot be avoided then a 80% of math would be done that
way an 20% rest would need of a specific module with TeX-like engine.
As said also, OMML has some new features are not covered by TeX/LaTeX.
> I've written reports on Super-String and quite francly LaTeX was the
> only program that could handle the syntax.
> Would you use a car that worked 9 days of of 10 if a reliable
> one existed.
No, nobody plans that!
But would anyone be forced to buy and drive an expensive and
only-specialists car (e.g. 2 places supercar) when a simple 4 places
all-day car is enough for them!
[1] http://my.opera.com/White%20Lynx/blog/show.dml/256124
"Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
> Whereas PDF files are electronic (as ps are), they are optimized for
> off-line printing. There is a common misconception PDF files are
> suitable for online reading.
Odd. I actually find it very hard to use the hyperlinks in my PDF
documents when I print them out. No matter how hard I press down with
my pen, the pages don't automatically flip for me.
On the other hand, I find that navigating html documents that I've
printed out usually more difficult than PDF documents I've printed.
--
Thomas A. Russ, USC/Information Sciences Institute
On 2006-12-22 14:20:15 -0500, ···@sevak.isi.edu (Thomas A. Russ) said:
> No matter how hard I press down with
> my pen, the pages don't automatically flip for me.
You need to pin them to your grad student's back first. ;^)
Thomas A. Russ ha escrito:
> "Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
>
> > Whereas PDF files are electronic (as ps are), they are optimized for
> > off-line printing. There is a common misconception PDF files are
> > suitable for online reading.
>
> Odd.
[QUOTES-GROUP
Avoid PDF for On-Screen Reading
Only use PDF for documents that users are likely to print.
PDF is great for distributing documents that need to be printed. But
that is all it's good for. No matter how tempting it might be, you
should never use PDF for content that you expect users to read online.
Forcing users to browse PDF documents makes your website's usability
about 300% worse relative to HTML pages.
PDF was designed to specify printable pages.
Critics of this practice cite several reasons for avoiding it. The
major one is that the inflexibility of PDF rendering makes it difficult
to read on screen: ...
PDF has been developed by Adobe for the distribution of electronic
documents in a format that retains the exact look of the source
material.
The lack of accessibility of PDF documents exposes Websites proprietors
to the risk of legal action under laws in many countries that protect
people against discrimination.
The general opinion of the accessibility community world wide however,
is that the use of PDFs on Websites still presents a significant
barrier for people with disabilities, in particular for sight impaired
Web users who rely on screen reader technology.
In Australia, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has
indicated that the use of PDF documents on Websites is still a
significant accessibility issue.
However over the next few years, the extent of this problem is likely
to diminish as older PDFs are removed from Websites ...
The ideal accessible alternative for content provided in a PDF file is
an equivalent HTML page that is both valid and accessible.
Persons using screen-reading devices generally cannot directly read
documents in PDF format. Adobe Systems, Inc., provides a free
translation service through their Access web pages, which will
translate PDF files to web pages (HTML documents).
Web sites often provide information in PDF when it is inappropriate.
PDF is good when the file is destined for printing, and the precise
printed page layout is important...
PDF is designed for printing, not browsing or spreading information.
Many persons using screen reading devices cannot read documents in PDF
format.
What is the PDF format good for?... Is it useful for on-screen
reading?... No.
PDF is good for printing, but that's it. Don't use it for online
presentation.
PDF is great for one thing and one thing only: printing documents.
For online reading, however, PDF is the monster from the Black Lagoon.
]
> I actually find it very hard to use the hyperlinks in my PDF
> documents when I print them out.
World does not turn around you :]
> No matter how hard I press down with
> my pen, the pages don't automatically flip for me.
Actualize your pen to Pindows 3000 or take four of whiskey and pages
will flip for you :]
[REFERENCES-GROUP
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010610.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format
http://www.usability.com.au/resources/pdf.cfm
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/AboutPDF.htm
http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/pdf-vs-html.html
http://www.nsf.gov/policies/access.jsp
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/why-not-pdf.html
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030714.html
]
"Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
> Thomas A. Russ ha escrito:
>
>> "Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
>>
>> > Whereas PDF files are electronic (as ps are), they are optimized for
>> > off-line printing. There is a common misconception PDF files are
>> > suitable for online reading.
>>
>> Odd.
>
>
> [QUOTES-GROUP
>
> Avoid PDF for On-Screen Reading
>
> Only use PDF for documents that users are likely to print.
>
> PDF is great for distributing documents that need to be printed. But
> that is all it's good for. No matter how tempting it might be, you
> should never use PDF for content that you expect users to read online.
>
> Forcing users to browse PDF documents makes your website's usability
> about 300% worse relative to HTML pages.
>
> PDF was designed to specify printable pages.
>
> Critics of this practice cite several reasons for avoiding it. The
> major one is that the inflexibility of PDF rendering makes it difficult
> to read on screen: ...
>
> PDF has been developed by Adobe for the distribution of electronic
> documents in a format that retains the exact look of the source
> material.
>
> The lack of accessibility of PDF documents exposes Websites proprietors
> to the risk of legal action under laws in many countries that protect
> people against discrimination.
>
> The general opinion of the accessibility community world wide however,
> is that the use of PDFs on Websites still presents a significant
> barrier for people with disabilities, in particular for sight impaired
> Web users who rely on screen reader technology.
>
> In Australia, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has
> indicated that the use of PDF documents on Websites is still a
> significant accessibility issue.
>
> However over the next few years, the extent of this problem is likely
> to diminish as older PDFs are removed from Websites ...
>
> The ideal accessible alternative for content provided in a PDF file is
> an equivalent HTML page that is both valid and accessible.
>
> Persons using screen-reading devices generally cannot directly read
> documents in PDF format. Adobe Systems, Inc., provides a free
> translation service through their Access web pages, which will
> translate PDF files to web pages (HTML documents).
>
> Web sites often provide information in PDF when it is inappropriate.
>
> PDF is good when the file is destined for printing, and the precise
> printed page layout is important...
>
> PDF is designed for printing, not browsing or spreading information.
>
> Many persons using screen reading devices cannot read documents in PDF
> format.
>
> What is the PDF format good for?... Is it useful for on-screen
> reading?... No.
>
> PDF is good for printing, but that's it. Don't use it for online
> presentation.
>
> PDF is great for one thing and one thing only: printing documents.
>
> For online reading, however, PDF is the monster from the Black Lagoon.
>
> ]
>
>> I actually find it very hard to use the hyperlinks in my PDF
>> documents when I print them out.
>
> World does not turn around you :]
>
>> No matter how hard I press down with
>> my pen, the pages don't automatically flip for me.
>
> Actualize your pen to Pindows 3000 or take four of whiskey and pages
> will flip for you :]
>
>
> [REFERENCES-GROUP
>
> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010610.html
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format
>
> http://www.usability.com.au/resources/pdf.cfm
>
> http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/AboutPDF.htm
>
> http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/pdf-vs-html.html
>
> http://www.nsf.gov/policies/access.jsp
>
> http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/why-not-pdf.html
>
> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030714.html
>
> ]
>
I'm afraid this is outdated and incorrect information. While it is true
that PDF documents use to be very difficult to access for users who
rely on screen readers, this is not necessarily true anymore and in
fact, PDF files which are 'tagged' are extremely user friendly for
users of screen readers.
It is also important to note that there are two types of PDF files. A
pdf can be (basically) compressed postscript with a few extensions or
it can be an image file. For users of screen readers, image files are
not accessible because they are just an image (i.e. pixels). The only
way to access these files is by using an OCR program, but I don't know
of any which will accept *.pdf input. The good news is that image pdfs
are usually only used when the source is material that has been
scanned in (usually when there is no electronic version, only a paper
version). Image PDFs are usually a lot larger than the equivalent
'text' based pdf.
Normal/text PDF files are quite accessible these days. Old versions
can be problematic, but you can always convert them to text. PDF files
created with later versions (i.e. adobe versions for about the last 5
years) are quite accessible, partially because adobe has improved the
format and partly because screen readers have just got better. If the
user creating the PDF also enables 'tags' in the document, a PDF file
actually becomes very accessible and in fact is one of the preferred
formats for users of screen readers.
It should also be noted that while web pages have become more
accessible for users of screen readers, there are still lots of issues
and it is by no means a great format. Furthermore, if you were to use
glyphs and images to represent characters and formulas, then they will
not be accessible to users of screen readers unless the screen reader
has some way of mapping an image or glyph to speech.
Finally, it is also probably worth noting that the most accessible
means of representing math formulas to blind and VI users is actually
TeX/LaTeX. In fact, much of the research into how to represent
formulas for the blind and vision impaired has been based on
TeX/LaTeX.
Tim
--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au
Tim X ha escrito:
> "Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
>
> > Thomas A. Russ ha escrito:
> >
> >> "Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
> >>
> >> > Whereas PDF files are electronic (as ps are), they are optimized for
> >> > off-line printing. There is a common misconception PDF files are
> >> > suitable for online reading.
> >>
> >> Odd.
> >
> >
> > [QUOTES-GROUP
> >
> > Avoid PDF for On-Screen Reading
> >
> > Only use PDF for documents that users are likely to print.
> >
> > PDF is great for distributing documents that need to be printed. But
> > that is all it's good for. No matter how tempting it might be, you
> > should never use PDF for content that you expect users to read online.
> >
> > Forcing users to browse PDF documents makes your website's usability
> > about 300% worse relative to HTML pages.
> >
> > PDF was designed to specify printable pages.
> >
> > Critics of this practice cite several reasons for avoiding it. The
> > major one is that the inflexibility of PDF rendering makes it difficult
> > to read on screen: ...
> >
> > PDF has been developed by Adobe for the distribution of electronic
> > documents in a format that retains the exact look of the source
> > material.
> >
> > The lack of accessibility of PDF documents exposes Websites proprietors
> > to the risk of legal action under laws in many countries that protect
> > people against discrimination.
> >
> > The general opinion of the accessibility community world wide however,
> > is that the use of PDFs on Websites still presents a significant
> > barrier for people with disabilities, in particular for sight impaired
> > Web users who rely on screen reader technology.
> >
> > In Australia, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has
> > indicated that the use of PDF documents on Websites is still a
> > significant accessibility issue.
> >
> > However over the next few years, the extent of this problem is likely
> > to diminish as older PDFs are removed from Websites ...
> >
> > The ideal accessible alternative for content provided in a PDF file is
> > an equivalent HTML page that is both valid and accessible.
> >
> > Persons using screen-reading devices generally cannot directly read
> > documents in PDF format. Adobe Systems, Inc., provides a free
> > translation service through their Access web pages, which will
> > translate PDF files to web pages (HTML documents).
> >
> > Web sites often provide information in PDF when it is inappropriate.
> >
> > PDF is good when the file is destined for printing, and the precise
> > printed page layout is important...
> >
> > PDF is designed for printing, not browsing or spreading information.
> >
> > Many persons using screen reading devices cannot read documents in PDF
> > format.
> >
> > What is the PDF format good for?... Is it useful for on-screen
> > reading?... No.
> >
> > PDF is good for printing, but that's it. Don't use it for online
> > presentation.
> >
> > PDF is great for one thing and one thing only: printing documents.
> >
> > For online reading, however, PDF is the monster from the Black Lagoon.
> >
> > ]
> >
> >> I actually find it very hard to use the hyperlinks in my PDF
> >> documents when I print them out.
> >
> > World does not turn around you :]
> >
> >> No matter how hard I press down with
> >> my pen, the pages don't automatically flip for me.
> >
> > Actualize your pen to Pindows 3000 or take four of whiskey and pages
> > will flip for you :]
> >
> >
> > [REFERENCES-GROUP
> >
> > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010610.html
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format
> >
> > http://www.usability.com.au/resources/pdf.cfm
> >
> > http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/AboutPDF.htm
> >
> > http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/pdf-vs-html.html
> >
> > http://www.nsf.gov/policies/access.jsp
> >
> > http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/why-not-pdf.html
> >
> > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030714.html
> >
> > ]
> >
>
> I'm afraid this is outdated and incorrect information.
But you focus only on the accessibility, part ignoring the rest :] PDF
continues to be designed for printing, recent accessibility improvement
apart.
> While it is true
> that PDF documents use to be very difficult to access for users who
> rely on screen readers, this is not necessarily true anymore and in
> fact, PDF files which are 'tagged' are extremely user friendly for
> users of screen readers.
How many PDF archived on ArXiv are 'tagged' with XML-like tags? 0%?
And on the rest of the web? 0.05%?
> actually becomes very accessible and in fact is one of the preferred
> formats for users of screen readers.
I doubt it! Even if tagged PDF are prepared, there are problems with
PDF readers at the non-windows part. Common reccommendation today is to
provide always alternative content (HTML).
> Furthermore, if you were to use
> glyphs and images to represent characters and formulas, then they will
> not be accessible to users of screen readers unless the screen reader
> has some way of mapping an image or glyph to speech.
I was illustrating that TeX metric form is not really needed and
formatting math on the web will be probably non-TeX like. No i was to
represent glyphs as images.
I think i will use images for diagrams: e.g. graph calculus or Balescu
diagrams in statistical mechanics. At the best would be an accessible
graphics format; something a la SVG.
> Finally, it is also probably worth noting that the most accessible
> means of representing math formulas to blind and VI users is actually
> TeX/LaTeX. In fact, much of the research into how to represent
> formulas for the blind and vision impaired has been based on
> TeX/LaTeX.
Unfortunately TeX/LaTeX is not accessible per se, and only
'accessibility' _there_ is reading of the TeX formula, which lack
information, is usually ambiguous and often wrong. Therein any modern
project for spoken maths do not use TeX but some other format with real
accessibility capabilities: e.g. MathML.
"Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
> Tim X ha escrito:
>
>> "Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
>>
>> > Thomas A. Russ ha escrito:
>> >
>> >> "Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
>> >>
>> >> > Whereas PDF files are electronic (as ps are), they are optimized for
>> >> > off-line printing. There is a common misconception PDF files are
>> >> > suitable for online reading.
>> >>
>> >> Odd.
>> >
>> >
>> > [QUOTES-GROUP
>> >
>> > Avoid PDF for On-Screen Reading
>> >
>> > Only use PDF for documents that users are likely to print.
>> >
>> > PDF is great for distributing documents that need to be printed. But
>> > that is all it's good for. No matter how tempting it might be, you
>> > should never use PDF for content that you expect users to read online.
>> >
>> > Forcing users to browse PDF documents makes your website's usability
>> > about 300% worse relative to HTML pages.
>> >
>> > PDF was designed to specify printable pages.
>> >
>> > Critics of this practice cite several reasons for avoiding it. The
>> > major one is that the inflexibility of PDF rendering makes it difficult
>> > to read on screen: ...
>> >
>> > PDF has been developed by Adobe for the distribution of electronic
>> > documents in a format that retains the exact look of the source
>> > material.
>> >
>> > The lack of accessibility of PDF documents exposes Websites proprietors
>> > to the risk of legal action under laws in many countries that protect
>> > people against discrimination.
>> >
>> > The general opinion of the accessibility community world wide however,
>> > is that the use of PDFs on Websites still presents a significant
>> > barrier for people with disabilities, in particular for sight impaired
>> > Web users who rely on screen reader technology.
>> >
>> > In Australia, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has
>> > indicated that the use of PDF documents on Websites is still a
>> > significant accessibility issue.
>> >
>> > However over the next few years, the extent of this problem is likely
>> > to diminish as older PDFs are removed from Websites ...
>> >
>> > The ideal accessible alternative for content provided in a PDF file is
>> > an equivalent HTML page that is both valid and accessible.
>> >
>> > Persons using screen-reading devices generally cannot directly read
>> > documents in PDF format. Adobe Systems, Inc., provides a free
>> > translation service through their Access web pages, which will
>> > translate PDF files to web pages (HTML documents).
>> >
>> > Web sites often provide information in PDF when it is inappropriate.
>> >
>> > PDF is good when the file is destined for printing, and the precise
>> > printed page layout is important...
>> >
>> > PDF is designed for printing, not browsing or spreading information.
>> >
>> > Many persons using screen reading devices cannot read documents in PDF
>> > format.
>> >
>> > What is the PDF format good for?... Is it useful for on-screen
>> > reading?... No.
>> >
>> > PDF is good for printing, but that's it. Don't use it for online
>> > presentation.
>> >
>> > PDF is great for one thing and one thing only: printing documents.
>> >
>> > For online reading, however, PDF is the monster from the Black Lagoon.
>> >
>> > ]
>> >
>> >> I actually find it very hard to use the hyperlinks in my PDF
>> >> documents when I print them out.
>> >
>> > World does not turn around you :]
>> >
>> >> No matter how hard I press down with
>> >> my pen, the pages don't automatically flip for me.
>> >
>> > Actualize your pen to Pindows 3000 or take four of whiskey and pages
>> > will flip for you :]
>> >
>> >
>> > [REFERENCES-GROUP
>> >
>> > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010610.html
>> >
>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format
>> >
>> > http://www.usability.com.au/resources/pdf.cfm
>> >
>> > http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/AboutPDF.htm
>> >
>> > http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/pdf-vs-html.html
>> >
>> > http://www.nsf.gov/policies/access.jsp
>> >
>> > http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/why-not-pdf.html
>> >
>> > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030714.html
>> >
>> > ]
>> >
>>
>> I'm afraid this is outdated and incorrect information.
>
> But you focus only on the accessibility, part ignoring the rest :] PDF
> continues to be designed for printing, recent accessibility improvement
> apart.
>
Yes, that was all I was responding to - you dragged in the
accessibility issues of PDF files and I just wanted to point out that
the PDF acccessibility issues are not the problem they use to be.
>> While it is true
>> that PDF documents use to be very difficult to access for users who
>> rely on screen readers, this is not necessarily true anymore and in
>> fact, PDF files which are 'tagged' are extremely user friendly for
>> users of screen readers.
>
> How many PDF archived on ArXiv are 'tagged' with XML-like tags? 0%?
>
No idea - never done any investigation into it.
However, note that just because the PDF does not have tags does NOT
mean it is not accessible - I create PDF files with various tools,
many of which don't support tagging (yet) and the files are quite
accessible for people with screen readers.
> And on the rest of the web? 0.05%?
>
>> actually becomes very accessible and in fact is one of the preferred
>> formats for users of screen readers.
>
> I doubt it! Even if tagged PDF are prepared, there are problems with
> PDF readers at the non-windows part. Common reccommendation today is to
> provide always alternative content (HTML).
Obviously you know much more than me. I've only been a blind user of
accessibility software for 9 years and have done no other
investigation other than use them on a regular basis. All of my
information from the various support agencies and personal experience
is that the accessability of PDF files is no longer the problem it use
to be. Personally, I prefer PDF to something like HTML pages. For one
thing, I can get the whole document with a single download and can
then access it whenever I want - I don't need to be connected to the
net and rely on the website not being down or it changing or
disappearing altogether. While I could use something like wget to
download my own copies, its slow, takes too much of my time and often
the pages are broken because of how links are specified etc.
>
>> Furthermore, if you were to use
>> glyphs and images to represent characters and formulas, then they will
>> not be accessible to users of screen readers unless the screen reader
>> has some way of mapping an image or glyph to speech.
>
> I was illustrating that TeX metric form is not really needed and
> formatting math on the web will be probably non-TeX like. No i was to
> represent glyphs as images.
>
> I think i will use images for diagrams: e.g. graph calculus or Balescu
> diagrams in statistical mechanics. At the best would be an accessible
> graphics format; something a la SVG.
>
>> Finally, it is also probably worth noting that the most accessible
>> means of representing math formulas to blind and VI users is actually
>> TeX/LaTeX. In fact, much of the research into how to represent
>> formulas for the blind and vision impaired has been based on
>> TeX/LaTeX.
>
> Unfortunately TeX/LaTeX is not accessible per se, and only
> 'accessibility' _there_ is reading of the TeX formula, which lack
> information, is usually ambiguous and often wrong. Therein any modern
> project for spoken maths do not use TeX but some other format with real
> accessibility capabilities: e.g. MathML.
All I am familiar with is the work done by T.V. Raman and others on
accessible markup of maths etc. I do know that if it wasn't for latex,
I certainly wouldn't have been able to access the course materials
from my maths units etc. Luckily all the lecturers used latex and were
able to give me the tex files which were extremely accessible,
partially because the markup is quite straight forward once you learn
it and partially because it is not too hard to 'hide' much of the
markup by mapping it to english words that make the formula reasonably
accessible - its not perfect, but it is as good, for me persoanlly
better, than any other approach I've had access to.
Tim
--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au
Tim X ha escrito:
> Yes, that was all I was responding to - you dragged in the
> accessibility issues of PDF files and I just wanted to point out that
> the PDF acccessibility issues are not the problem they use to be.
Current thought is that PDF lacks acceptable accesibility and is not
the prefered format for communication online [1].
> No idea - never done any investigation into it.
> However, note that just because the PDF does not have tags does NOT
> mean it is not accessible - I create PDF files with various tools,
> many of which don't support tagging (yet) and the files are quite
> accessible for people with screen readers.
Zero accessibility is also accessibility. When i mean ArXiv PDF are not
accessible i mean its accessibility is very low. Non tagged PDFs have
low accessibility when compared with modern alternative approaches [2].
> All I am familiar with is the work done by T.V. Raman and others on
> accessible markup of maths etc. I do know that if it wasn't for latex,
> I certainly wouldn't have been able to access the course materials
> from my maths units etc.
Then you would to know that Raman was on the original group developing
MathML [3]. Therefore let us asume that he did know he was doing.
[1] http://www.dessci.com/en/company/press/releases/050810.htm
[2]
http://www.w3.org/Math/Software/mathml_software_cat_accessibility.html
[3] http://www.w3.org/1999/07/REC-MathML-19990707/appendixD.html
"Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
> Tim X ha escrito:
>
>> Yes, that was all I was responding to - you dragged in the
>> accessibility issues of PDF files and I just wanted to point out that
>> the PDF acccessibility issues are not the problem they use to be.
>
> Current thought is that PDF lacks acceptable accesibility and is not
> the prefered format for communication online [1].
>
>> No idea - never done any investigation into it.
>> However, note that just because the PDF does not have tags does NOT
>> mean it is not accessible - I create PDF files with various tools,
>> many of which don't support tagging (yet) and the files are quite
>> accessible for people with screen readers.
>
> Zero accessibility is also accessibility. When i mean ArXiv PDF are not
> accessible i mean its accessibility is very low. Non tagged PDFs have
> low accessibility when compared with modern alternative approaches [2].
>
>> All I am familiar with is the work done by T.V. Raman and others on
>> accessible markup of maths etc. I do know that if it wasn't for latex,
>> I certainly wouldn't have been able to access the course materials
>> from my maths units etc.
>
> Then you would to know that Raman was on the original group developing
> MathML [3]. Therefore let us asume that he did know he was doing.
>
> [1] http://www.dessci.com/en/company/press/releases/050810.htm
>
> [2]
> http://www.w3.org/Math/Software/mathml_software_cat_accessibility.html
>
> [3] http://www.w3.org/1999/07/REC-MathML-19990707/appendixD.html
>
You are so determined on defending your initial arguments, you are
seeing any comment as attacking your position. All I wanted to point
out is that these days PDF files *are* accessible and as a blind user,
I can state that PDF files are as accessible as plain text. Also, just
for clarity, untagged PDF files are these days accessible. Creating
them with tags just makes them a lot more user friendly as screen
readers are able to give the blind user additional feedback regarding
the structure of the document. The point is that PDF files are *NOT*
inaccessible for blind and VI users and are extremely accessible if
created correctly. This is absolutely no different from any other
medium - if you do not use it and consider the needs of the audience,
especially those with accessibility issues, then it is unlikely the
document will be accessible. I come across far more web pages that are
inaccessible than PDF documents. I also come across word documents
that are inaccessible and it is bloody ludicrous when people who have
no idea what they are talking about start blabbering about PDF files
not being accessible.
With respect to accessibility to maths for blind users - there is *no*
working, reliable and easy way to access such material electronically
at present. Most blind users have to use a number of different
methods to get the same information as sighted users in this domain
and usually have to go through a trial and error process each time
they need to access new material. Math formuli written in LaTeX (or
even TeX) offers a lot of advantages to blind users as you can map the
constructs to spoken text reasonably easily. The same could be said
for mathML, except nobody is using it so there are no sources to use.
Likewise, I developed my own syntax for expressing maths. While my own
syntax would not be good as a general solution because I designed it
for my own specific needs and area of interest, it is quite
accessible. However, it would be fairly useless as a means to express
relationships for rendering in a printed or on-line format. This is a
very very complex problem and anyone who thinks it can be done
trivially for either on-line or printed output is not thinking clearly.
I made absolutely no comment about MathML, about your general
arguement concerning electronic publishing or the merits of using
TeX/LaTeX for such. I am quite aware of Raman's work and he has some
excellent insight. The last time I saw recommendations for accessing
maths from Raman, about 2 years ago, his recommendation was *not*
mathML, but rather to obtain the latex sources. I suspect this is
probably because there is no reliable working software for rendering
mathML that is also accessible to blind users. Until there is, all
arguements about MathML being more accessible are just theoretical
conjecture. Even when such software exists, if the authoring community
don't adopt it, then it is still irrelevant (history is filled with
good ideas which never gained acceptance).
Up until now, I have refraimed from making any comment on anything
other than your misguided actions of dragging in accessibility to this
thread. However, I will now conclude by saying I really think you have
missed the point being made by others in your determination to defend
your original position that the algorithms of TeX were too complex.I
think much of this thread has been arguing at cross purposes and
confusing the ease and expressiveness of writing with the process of
rendering of high quality output for either printed or on-line
presentation.
- TeX/LaTeX predates electronic (on-line) publishing and as such, does
not really incorporate the dynamic aspects of rendering content in
that sort of environment. In this respect, it is no different to any
other authoring system not specifically designed for on-line
presentations. MS Word is no better and its printed output is, in my
opinion, rarely as good as TeX/LaTeX.
- TeX/LaTeX does an excellent job of layout for printed material,
especially mathematical formulas. With respect to your comments that
many scientific journals now accept word documents instead of
TeX/LaTeX, all I can say is that they must be journals in which the
articles are mainly text rather than maths. I have had the very
unfortunate experience of producing maths formulas in word and while
the screen reader software probably made this a little harder, it is
a cumbersome slow process and nearly impossible to get a good
looking printed result. Others I have talkked with have reported the
same). Also note that your reference to journals using word etc is
irrelevant for your arguement concerning electronic publishing
anyway as word is certainly no better at addressing the issues your
brought up than PDF or any other authoring system which is designed
for printing. Word has not been accepted as a submission format by
these journals because it is a better format technically - it has
been accepted merely as a reflection of the viral nature of word and
MS Office. In fact, many of the publshing houses I know of that
accept word documents convert them into a different format to
incorporate them into the publishing process anyway - often the
final output is PDF. Where I work, we accept material written in
Word. However, the first stage of that submission process involves
translating the document to PDF. This was found to be necessary due
to issues associated with the variety of fonts that word documents
may require, which caused problems if we needed to distribute the
documents to others.
- You are correct that on-line electronic publishing has different
requirements to publishing for printed hardcopy. However, I think
your incorrect to argue that TeX is too complicated and therefore no
good for this. TeX is not great for this because it predates the
need/requirements. However, if anything, on-line publishing and
rendering for on-line publishing is going to be even more complex to
do if we want results that look as good as TeX's printed output. The
problem isn't that TeX is too complicated, the problem is TeX was
designed in a world where the final output was not as dynamic - the
author selected the page size, the font, margins, line spacing etc.
With on-line publishing, much of this (including available fonts
etc) can be controlled by the reader. A system which is able to give
good results in this sort of environment is going to require some
sofphisticated algorithms and will not be trivial. In fact, I
suspect any successful system will likely make TeX look almost
trivial.
- You have also confused authoring syntax with the complexity of the
underlying rendering process. I think this is a mistake. Working in
pure TeX can be a challenge, but thats why you have macro packages
like LaTeX, which will suit 80% of users. When you need the full
power of TeX, you can delve into its syntax more fully. However,
comparing mathML authoring syntax with TeX authoring syntax is
largely irrelevant to the issue of rendering the final output or the
complexity of the algorithms that perform that rendering. As long as
both syntax have the same expressive power, it is irrelevant to the
final output.
- Currently, there is no on-line rendering system which will provide
high quality results and allow arbitrary selection of font families,
sizes or window coordinates for complex constructs such as
mathematical formulas where the relationship of items in the final
layout is critical to the meaning. Systems such as mathML are a
starting point, but as already pointed out, they are limited, there
are few reliable implementations and I expect, they represent more
of what will be considered part of the necessary learning process
required before we develop a system which is acceptable to authors
and provides on-line rendered results acceptable to readers. TeX
provides one of the best printed rendering of maths, but cannot
provide anything other than an electronic "image" of the printed
output for on-line access. However, at this time, there is nothing
else that can provide a good truely "on-line" rendering and it is
likely we will need someone like Donald Knuth, who designs something
specifically for on-line rendering that provides reliable good
quality output and it will likely take longer than the 8 years it
took to do TeX. It is also likely it will take advantage of much of
the aproaches and knowledge incorporated in TeX to do this,
especially in areas such as hyphenation where TeX has pretty much
set the standard. It is also likely that whatever system is
developed will not be that accessible at first and that
accessibility will come later.
Now lets get back to lisp, which has always been quite accessible and
due to its straight-forward syntax, remains one of the most accessible
and easy to use languages for blind users (and no where as annoying as
Python's whitespace dependent syntax!)
Tim
--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au
Tim X ha escrito:
> > Then you would to know that Raman was on the original group developing
> > MathML [3]. Therefore let us asume that he did know he was doing.
> >
> > [1] http://www.dessci.com/en/company/press/releases/050810.htm
> >
> > [2]
> > http://www.w3.org/Math/Software/mathml_software_cat_accessibility.html
> >
> > [3] http://www.w3.org/1999/07/REC-MathML-19990707/appendixD.html
> >
>
> You are so determined on defending your initial arguments, you are
> seeing any comment as attacking your position.
If you read with care links i introduced, you can notice projects for
introducing, for instance, MathML tags into PDF files for generating
accessible math.
Why does the National Science Foundation (NSF) gives a grant to
continue research in making mathematical content accessible to people
with vision disabilities if all one needs is TeX and a recent version
of PDF? Maybe because are not the last solution?
> All I wanted to point
> out is that these days PDF files *are* accessible and as a blind user,
> I can state that PDF files are as accessible as plain text.
The so called "ideal solution" discussed in [1] is an example I think
is contradicing you. They claim that ideal solution for doing a PDF
accessible is to provide HTML alternative for the content!
In the site Web accessibility in mind [2] it is remarked that the
question of accessibility of last PDF formats when compared to HTML is
hot debate topic (doing me to doubt your emphasized *are* and *NOT*
words). They discuss different limitations of the PDF 'accessible'
format and conclude "Although Adobe is doing a better job of removing
accessibility barriers from their product, HTML is still the preferred
web format by the majority of users with disabilities."
> for mathML, except nobody is using it so there are no sources to use.
The current problem is on web browsers support and in some restricted
sense is another of legacies of limitations and incorrect design of
TeX. Take fractions as prototypical example, the original TeX was
{first-child \over second-child} which was one of mistakes of Knuh.
This has been partially corrected in LaTeX with
\frac{first-child}{second-child} and, unfortunately for us, first
MathML folks copied LaTeX into MathML as <mfrac>first-child
second-child</mfrac> which does not fit well into web systems desing
and main reason that MathML is very difficult to be implemented on
XML-CSS browsers and therein the lack of broad support.
Fortunately, MS Word 2007 format follows some of guidelines some of us
are claiming during time for online publishing. In OMML, the
TeX/LaTeX/MathML structural model is _not_ used and both the numerator
and denominator are tagged explicitly [3]. Therefore at least one
mainstream model will be minimally acceptable.
In CanonML you can write [a OVER 2] (which is less verbose and arguagly
more readable than current LaTeX \frac{a}{2}), converting it via
templates to
[FRACTION [NUMERATOR a] [DENOMINATOR 2]] or, using shorthands, [FRACT
[NUM a] [DEN 2]] for the 'layout' layer.
The design of CanonML appears to rock with its abstract box model. We
also already added layout capabilities beyond that of MathML, OMML,
LaTeX, amsTeX... For instance, the MathML script model goes beyond that
of TeX/LaTeX/amsTeX but even if next MathML 3 adds some of suggestions
i did recently on the W3C lists, CanonML format is still more
sophisticated on those points.
I already cited several academic publishers using MathML, even if they
admit submision of manuscripts on TeX/LaTeX from authors. TeX/LaTeX is
very far from being the prefered format for electronic publishing and
storage even if people here was very confused about that. If my memory
does not fail now, the PLoS initiative on biology also uses MathML for
electronic publishing of their journals.
> The last time I saw recommendations for accessing
> maths from Raman, about 2 years ago, his recommendation was *not*
> mathML, but rather to obtain the latex sources. I suspect this is
> probably because there is no reliable working software for rendering
> mathML that is also accessible to blind users.
Just this year, he said that MathML would be THE way to publishing
maths, proposing an incremental transition from the TeX/LaTeX world as
way to success. Raman exactly said we would do "MathML essential".
> missed the point being made by others in your determination to defend
> your original position that the algorithms of TeX were too complex.I
I think that is not exactly i said. I said that TeX was too complex for
it really does. I think i also wrote about limitations of TeX system.
Lack of a suitable prescript model is one of more important faults on
current LaTeX. Several of TeX limitations are avoided in more modern
formats. I even cited MathML FAQ where it is clearly stated that TeX
was not reused for math because was a limited format not because was
complex, therefore i do not understand your point on returning to those
points.
> not really incorporate the dynamic aspects of rendering content in
> that sort of environment. In this respect, it is no different to any
> other authoring system not specifically designed for on-line
> presentations. MS Word is no better and its printed output is, in my
> opinion, rarely as good as TeX/LaTeX.
Next MS Word format (being currently standarized at ECMA) has
interesting features do not supported on TeX systems, such as a true
prescript model, real Unicode support, interesting automatic breaks or
being based on fonts optimized for online.
> With respect to your comments that
> many scientific journals now accept word documents instead of
> TeX/LaTeX, all I can say is that they must be journals in which the
> articles are mainly text rather than maths.
In reply to authors requirements, APS receives Word manuscripts since
2003 [4]. Judge by yourself if the whole Physical Review collection (A,
B, C, D, E and Letters journal) from the APS is mathematical enough or
not.
Usage of LaTeX in other disciplines and journals is far from
mainstream. Example in chemistry, Word is the prefered format for ACS
journals, including more mathematical oriented ones as J. Phys. Chem.
[5]. This is also true for several chemical physics journals i know.
The Journal of Mathematical Physics accepts submisions on Word format.
i do not know if you call them "articles are mainly text rather than
maths."
I have collaborated with physicists and chemists and published works on
biogeochemistry and hidrodynamics of rias and nobody in the groups used
TeX/LaTeX.
> Word has not been accepted as a submission format by
> these journals because it is a better format technically
I never said or even suggested that! However, it is true that next Word
format introduces technical features are not in TeX. Note i am not
claiming that all of us would use Word.
> - You are correct that on-line electronic publishing has different
> requirements to publishing for printed hardcopy. However, I think
> your incorrect to argue that TeX is too complicated and therefore no
> good for this.
If you read me with care you would notice i said TeX was limited and,
therefore, no suitable for the new requirements. SGML publishing
comunity did not reuse TeX when designing ISO 12083 years ago, XML
comunity did not reuse TeX when defining MathML, and the same for
Microsoft Word 2007 and ECMA or OpenDoc. CSSmath, XML-MAIDEN approach,
CanonML, etc. are other formats are not reusing TeX. This avoiding of
TeX/LaTeX is not because was too complex but because is too complex for
*limited* funcionality provides us.
Please read the FAQ i already cited [6]. They say why rejected
TeX/LaTeX; it was not because complexity but because limitation of
TeX/LaTeX.
What is more, the next LaTeX 3 (now under development) is copying
features already available from the SGML/XML/HTML world. They will also
focus on the needs of specific communities as chemistry now, but i
doubt we would wait an increased interest from chemical comunity.
> The
> problem isn't that TeX is too complicated, the problem is TeX was
> designed in a world where the final output was not as dynamic - the
> author selected the page size, the font, margins, line spacing etc.
> With on-line publishing, much of this (including available fonts
> etc) can be controlled by the reader. A system which is able to give
> good results in this sort of environment is going to require some
> sofphisticated algorithms and will not be trivial. In fact, I
> suspect any successful system will likely make TeX look almost
> trivial.
If you read with care, you can notice i said all of this in this
thread. I also explicitely remarked that TeX fonts were not designed
for online reading but printing and i that TeX engine does not work for
liquid layouts.
I even noticed that current implementation of MathML in Gecko browsers
is limited because they are using a TeX-like engine and TeX fonts,
which is usually considered to be a bad choice.
> - Currently, there is no on-line rendering system which will provide
> high quality results and allow arbitrary selection of font families,
> sizes or window coordinates for complex constructs such as
> mathematical formulas where the relationship of items in the final
> layout is critical to the meaning. Systems such as mathML are a
> starting point, but as already pointed out, they are limited, there
> are few reliable implementations and I expect, they represent more
> of what will be considered part of the necessary learning process
> required before we develop a system which is acceptable to authors
> and provides on-line rendered results acceptable to readers.
Agree but part of the problem is in authors' misunderstandings.
On a 1999 meeting on TeX and the web, Timothy Murphy and Michael Doob
predicted that most mathematicians will stick with TeX, no matter what;
Mathematics is a separate world, which TeX serves very well they said.
Carlisle (LaTeX guru) remarked TeX users need to get onto the Web
somehow. Patrick Ion -American Mathematical Society- said "Engineers at
Boeing (for example) use math too, and they need to read and write it."
> Now lets get back to lisp, which has always been quite accessible and
> due to its straight-forward syntax, remains one of the most accessible
> and easy to use languages for blind users (and no where as annoying as
> Python's whitespace dependent syntax!)
I am really impressed by these thoughts, until now i had not think on
this enough. Thanks! Have you some link or formal citation i could use?
About syntax i am based in LISP syntax but with modifications. Usage of
'infix' and formal reduction on number of parentheses needed -even a
400%- would do code more readable and easy to use still. Moreover, the
CanonML syntax is less verbose than Python-like one (SLiP format) and
does not need of special editors -therein we will promote in
blog/forums-.
[1] http://www.yorku.ca/webaccess/pdf/2_idealsolution.html
[2] http://www.webaim.org/techniques/acrobat/
[3]
http://blogs.msdn.com/murrays/archive/2006/10/07/MathML-and-Ecma-Math-_2800_OMML_2900_-.aspx
[4] http://pra.aps.org/edannounce/PRAv67i3.html
[5]
https://paragon.acs.org/paragon/application?pageid=content&parentid=authorchecklist&mid=mt_jp.html&headername=Manuscript%20Templates%20-%20The+Journal+of+Physical+Chemistry
[6] http://www.w3.org/Math/mathml-faq.html#syntax
"Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
> Take fractions as prototypical example
It's trivial to convert fractions between various unambiguous
representations.
> Fortunately, MS Word 2007 format follows some of guidelines some of us
> are claiming during time for online publishing.
Ms Word 2007 ignores the OpenDocument format and pushes for its own
proprietary format with restrictive licensing. It's unacceptable for
political reasons.
> Next MS Word format (being currently standarized at ECMA) has
> interesting features do not supported on TeX systems, such as a true
> prescript model, real Unicode support, interesting automatic breaks
> or being based on fonts optimized for online.
I don't know about the next Ms Word formats from the technical point
of view, but previous Word versions have been pathetic in comparison
to decades older TeX, in terms of the quality of the typeset output
(most algorithms are greedy), consistency of formatting between
printers and between the versions of Ms Word and Windows,
availability on various platforms, features for mathematical formulae,
availability of third-party packages for various tasks (like making
program listings, advanced tables, diagrams), and many other aspects.
I somehow doubt that the next version will reverse all that.
--
__("< Marcin Kowalczyk
\__/ ······@knm.org.pl
^^ http://qrnik.knm.org.pl/~qrczak/
Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk ha escrito:
> "Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
>
> > Take fractions as prototypical example
>
> It's trivial to convert fractions between various unambiguous
> representations.
But experience on SGML, XML, and TeX publishing proves that one formats
are better others for processing and layout.
> > Fortunately, MS Word 2007 format follows some of guidelines some of us
> > are claiming during time for online publishing.
>
> Ms Word 2007 ignores the OpenDocument format and pushes for its own
> proprietary format with restrictive licensing. It's unacceptable for
> political reasons.
Well, the OpenDocument format also ignore previous formats. For
instance, ignores decade of experience on ISO 12083. Ignores several
formats for tables...
I was not refering to Word 'binaries' I was refering to the ECMA Office
XML format is being currently standarized by ECMA as open format.
> > Next MS Word format (being currently standarized at ECMA) has
> > interesting features do not supported on TeX systems, such as a true
> > prescript model, real Unicode support, interesting automatic breaks
> > or being based on fonts optimized for online.
>
> I don't know about the next Ms Word formats from the technical point
> of view,
but you are rapid to shoot.
> but previous Word versions have been pathetic in comparison
> to decades older TeX, in terms of the quality of the typeset output
> (most algorithms are greedy), consistency of formatting between
> printers and between the versions of Ms Word and Windows,
> availability on various platforms, features for mathematical formulae,
> availability of third-party packages for various tasks (like making
> program listings, advanced tables, diagrams), and many other aspects.
> I somehow doubt that the next version will reverse all that.
As said Office XML has some technical features are not in previous
formats.
Goverments previously had choosed OpenDoc had switched to Office ECMA
because from a technical point of view there is no color between both
formats. OpenDoc people usually cry saying that ECMA format is too
complex and that Opendoc is needed for users. There is plans to ISO
standarization also.
I know of several publishers are updating for receiving Office XML
format instead LaTeX from users. In a recent conference on maths,
mathematician Peter Jipsen said that Word/ECMA/Unicode format will
become the next standard de facto against TeX. I think that i agree.
Juan R. ha escrito:
> Goverments previously had choosed OpenDoc had switched to Office ECMA
> because from a technical point of view there is no color between both
> formats. OpenDoc people usually cry saying that ECMA format is too
> complex and that Opendoc is needed for users. There is plans to ISO
> standarization also.
May be,
Goverments previously had choosen OpenDoc now switched to Office ECMA
because from a technical point of view there is not color between both
formats. OpenDoc people usually cry saying that ECMA format is too
complex and that Opendoc is enough for the users' needs. There is plans
to ISO
standarization also of the ECMA format.
I also notice that finally ECMA has aproved the Open Office XML format
[http://www.ecma-international.org/news/PressReleases/PR_TC45_Dec2006.htm]
"Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
> I was not refering to Word 'binaries' I was refering to the ECMA Office
> XML format is being currently standarized by ECMA as open format.
Me too.
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20051216153153504
It's not an open format.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1892080,00.asp
> In a recent conference on maths, mathematician Peter Jipsen said
> that Word/ECMA/Unicode format will become the next standard de facto
> against TeX.
I don't believe him, and I hope it will not.
--
__("< Marcin Kowalczyk
\__/ ······@knm.org.pl
^^ http://qrnik.knm.org.pl/~qrczak/
"Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
>
> If you read with care links i introduced, you can notice projects for
> introducing, for instance, MathML tags into PDF files for generating
> accessible math.
>
> Why does the National Science Foundation (NSF) gives a grant to
> continue research in making mathematical content accessible to people
> with vision disabilities if all one needs is TeX and a recent version
> of PDF? Maybe because are not the last solution?
>
I should have been more clear. I'm not claiming that the current
situation is perfect and that PDF files are perfect. As I pointed out
in the previous post, there is *no* adequate electronic representation
of maths which blind and vision impaired users can easily access. As
mentioned, it is necessary to have a whole toolbox of different things
and you normally have to try each out to find which one will work well
with the data you have. I'm not saying that mathML is a waste of time
or pointless research - it is important and if successful will be very
beneficial. However, I am definitely challenging the claim that PDF
documents are not accessible for the blind and vision impaired. This
is *not* the case and while there are still issues with PDF documents,
these issues are no worse than with formats such as HTML. To a large
extent, the problems with both PDF documents and HTML (or XML etc)
documents are that authors do not use them appropriately. The current
state of things is that PDF documents are no worse (and no better)
than HTML and in both cases, the extent to which they are accessible
is largely determined by how they are used by the author. On one
level, PDF has an advantage in that it is easier to manage - you can
download it in one "unit", you don't have problems with absolute links
which make copying HTML based documents a problem and its easy with
PDF to maintain local archives which remove your necessity to be
connected to the internet or your exposure too important data suddenly
vanishing when the site moves, closes or is updated.
PDF has other advantages over HTML - try searching a book made up of
individual HTML pages, jumping to the relevant location - if the site
hasn't provided search facilities, your stuffed. With a PDF document,
I can search the whole document and jump straight to the point I want
without any need to rely on the site providing a search engine or
getting irrelevant responses back from similar phrases in unrelated
documents also on that site and then when I find the right HTML page,
I don't have to search for the phrase again within the page through my
browser's find facility.
>> All I wanted to point
>> out is that these days PDF files *are* accessible and as a blind user,
>> I can state that PDF files are as accessible as plain text.
>
> The so called "ideal solution" discussed in [1] is an example I think
> is contradicing you. They claim that ideal solution for doing a PDF
> accessible is to provide HTML alternative for the content!
>
Yes, they do contradict me and they have a right to their opinion.
However, I have worked for a number of disability organisations, have
participated in various groups and have seen first hand how many of
these decisions are made and I have seen how many times they have got it
wrong. Many of these groups 20 years ago were arguing that computers
and electronic documents were never going to be of any use to blind
and vision impaired and that the only way to go was translate
everything into Braille.
My opinions are based on over 45 years of having a vision impairment
and having been blind for nearly 10. I have also been working in the
ICT field for the last 20 years and can categorically state that
1. PDF is as accessible as HTML, both suffer from similar weaknesses
and both can be used to create inaccessible content if not used
appropriately. In fact, the web is becoming less accessible at
present due to Web 2.0 and javascript (though I expect this will
change as screen readers adapt and web designers become more aware
of accessibility issues)..
2. Currently, the most accessible format for math has been
TeX/LaTeX sources.
3. From an authoring perspective, writing anything other than
trivial maths in word is nothing less than a nightmare. Making
sense of the output with screen readers is very difficult.
> In the site Web accessibility in mind [2] it is remarked that the
> question of accessibility of last PDF formats when compared to HTML is
> hot debate topic (doing me to doubt your emphasized *are* and *NOT*
> words). They discuss different limitations of the PDF 'accessible'
> format and conclude "Although Adobe is doing a better job of removing
> accessibility barriers from their product, HTML is still the preferred
> web format by the majority of users with disabilities."
>
Obviously, you are free to doubt whatever you like. I'm pointing out
some of what I have seen and experienced as someone who actually has
to deal with this crap - however, you might want to re-read some of my
points - accessibility is about more than whether a screen reader can
speak the content and when you consider the practicle aspects, such as
management of accessible data etc.
One of the things many recommendations overlook is the extent to which
the technology is being adequately used. PDF documents, if authored
correctly are more accessible and easier to use than the same
information authored correctly in HTML. However, there has not been
the publicity and education associated with creating PDF files as
there has been with HTML. 10 years ago, HTML was not terribly
accessible, but a large investment in education has improved that
situation a lot. The use of PDF has not had the same emphasis.
The irony of this is that mathML is likely to end up in a similar
situation as PDF files currently find themselves - due to
essentially FUD, there is loads of outdated, misguided and misinformed
information out there on the web which talks about how inaccessible
PDF is when in fact much of htis is based on old and outdated
information or on the incorrect use of PDF authoring tools.
I find it amusing how many people cite web references as if they are
some sort of unquestionable truth, yet they are rarely peer reviewed,
seldom provide any credentials and are really often based on nothing
more than opinion. While I'm not saying this is the case with all the
references you have posted, I do find some are really just one groups
opinion and as such, are no more compelling than any other opinion
(including my own).
>> for mathML, except nobody is using it so there are no sources to use.
>
> The current problem is on web browsers support and in some restricted
> sense is another of legacies of limitations and incorrect design of
> TeX. Take fractions as prototypical example, the original TeX was
> {first-child \over second-child} which was one of mistakes of Knuh.
> This has been partially corrected in LaTeX with
>
> \frac{first-child}{second-child} and, unfortunately for us, first
> MathML folks copied LaTeX into MathML as <mfrac>first-child
> second-child</mfrac> which does not fit well into web systems desing
> and main reason that MathML is very difficult to be implemented on
> XML-CSS browsers and therein the lack of broad support.
>
All very good - but it does not change the fact it is more theoretical
than practicle. I have to deal with how things are right now. Maybe
mathML or its children will provide great on-line web access to maths
sometime in the future - but then again, maybe medical science will be
able to give me new retinas by then and all of this will be irrelevant
for me anyway.
> Fortunately, MS Word 2007 format follows some of guidelines some of us
> are claiming during time for online publishing. In OMML, the
> TeX/LaTeX/MathML structural model is _not_ used and both the numerator
> and denominator are tagged explicitly [3]. Therefore at least one
> mainstream model will be minimally acceptable.
Maybe acceptable to some, but not acceptable to me. I'm not at all
interested in what MS Word can do until they make the whole authoring
process far less painful. Actually, even then I'm not interested
because I use mainly MAC and Linux anyway and I have a philosophical
and ethical issue with their business practices and have not yet seen
enough proof of their claims to be moving towards open standards
and/or making their proprietary standards open and usable by others
without the threat of patent violation suits etc.
>> The last time I saw recommendations for accessing
>> maths from Raman, about 2 years ago, his recommendation was *not*
>> mathML, but rather to obtain the latex sources. I suspect this is
>> probably because there is no reliable working software for rendering
>> mathML that is also accessible to blind users.
>
> Just this year, he said that MathML would be THE way to publishing
> maths, proposing an incremental transition from the TeX/LaTeX world as
> way to success. Raman exactly said we would do "MathML essential".
>
Yes, Raman has been doing some very valuable work with respect to
accessibility and I don't doubt that at some point in the future, we
will have a system which is more accessible. However, right now,
today, TeX/LaTeX is still the most accessible format for maths - its
far from ideal, but its the best we have that works and is actually
used.
>> missed the point being made by others in your determination to defend
>> your original position that the algorithms of TeX were too complex.I
>
> I think that is not exactly i said. I said that TeX was too complex for
> it really does. I think i also wrote about limitations of TeX system.
> Lack of a suitable prescript model is one of more important faults on
> current LaTeX. Several of TeX limitations are avoided in more modern
> formats. I even cited MathML FAQ where it is clearly stated that TeX
> was not reused for math because was a limited format not because was
> complex, therefore i do not understand your point on returning to those
> points.
>
We are back to square one again! I disagree that TeX is too complex
for what it does. What it does, I don't think any other system does
better. You have yet to show another working system what produces as
good printed results as TeX which is less complex.
I do agree that TeX may not be any good for on-line rendering - but
that is not what it was designed for. However, I doubt any really good
on-line rendering system will be less complex that TeX - I suspect it
will be more complex.
>> not really incorporate the dynamic aspects of rendering content in
>> that sort of environment. In this respect, it is no different to any
>> other authoring system not specifically designed for on-line
>> presentations. MS Word is no better and its printed output is, in my
>> opinion, rarely as good as TeX/LaTeX.
>
> Next MS Word format (being currently standarized at ECMA) has
> interesting features do not supported on TeX systems, such as a true
> prescript model, real Unicode support, interesting automatic breaks or
> being based on fonts optimized for online.
How is this going to be any different from the on-line PDF documents
which you have already stated are not true on-line publishing? Are we
all going to have to have MS Word renderers built into our web
browsers?
>
> If you read me with care you would notice i said TeX was limited and,
> therefore, no suitable for the new requirements. SGML publishing
> comunity did not reuse TeX when designing ISO 12083 years ago, XML
> comunity did not reuse TeX when defining MathML, and the same for
> Microsoft Word 2007 and ECMA or OpenDoc. CSSmath, XML-MAIDEN approach,
> CanonML, etc. are other formats are not reusing TeX. This avoiding of
> TeX/LaTeX is not because was too complex but because is too complex for
> *limited* funcionality provides us.
>
> Please read the FAQ i already cited [6]. They say why rejected
> TeX/LaTeX; it was not because complexity but because limitation of
> TeX/LaTeX.
>
You have misread my argument completely. I am not suggesting TeX is
suitable for on-line publishing - in fact, quite the opposite. TeX is
*not* suitable for on-line publishing because it was not designed for
that purpose and does not meet the unique requirements of such a
dynamic environment. What I disagree with is your suggestion that this
is because TeX is too complex. I have exactly the opposite view - i
believe that any system which is able to provide on-line rendering
which is as good as TeX printed rendering will be *more* complex than
TeX. I find the suggestion that anyone will be able to develop a
rendering system which is less complex than TeX for on-line rendering
which produces as good (or better) results than TeX's printed
rendering is rediculous.
>
>> Now lets get back to lisp, which has always been quite accessible and
>> due to its straight-forward syntax, remains one of the most accessible
>> and easy to use languages for blind users (and no where as annoying as
>> Python's whitespace dependent syntax!)
>
> I am really impressed by these thoughts, until now i had not think on
> this enough. Thanks! Have you some link or formal citation i could use?
>
> About syntax i am based in LISP syntax but with modifications. Usage of
> 'infix' and formal reduction on number of parentheses needed -even a
> 400%- would do code more readable and easy to use still. Moreover, the
> CanonML syntax is less verbose than Python-like one (SLiP format) and
> does not need of special editors -therein we will promote in
> blog/forums-.
>
I have no references - it is just my experience after 20 years of
working with a number of different languages. I do think being overly
concerned about parenthesis is misguided - I also don't understand why
people criticise lisp's parenthesis, yet will right XML documents full
of < and > ( I also beleive that ISO 12083 has been referred to as a
"tag soup" and quite a nightmare to work with. Lisp parenthesis are
easily ignored and not a problem. I also don't understand people's
issue with prefix and obsession with infix - one of the things I love
about Lisp is not having to constantly think about operator precedence
I find rules and equations extremely easy to read/write with prefix
notation - its just different and takes some adjustment. Once you have
adjusted to it, the greater simplicity of parsing prefix would seem to
justify the transition effort.
Tim
--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au
Tim X ha escrito:
> PDF has other advantages over HTML - try searching a book made up of
> individual HTML pages, jumping to the relevant location - if the site
> hasn't provided search facilities, your stuffed. With a PDF document,
> I can search the whole document and jump straight to the point I want
> without any need to rely on the site providing a search engine or
> getting irrelevant responses back from similar phrases in unrelated
> documents also on that site and then when I find the right HTML page,
> I don't have to search for the phrase again within the page through my
> browser's find facility.
Partially agree and disagree. I have dowloaded books on HTML format
(e.g. book on Docbook format) and i can search book perfectly using my
OS search capacities. Never tried Google search for local files but
sure may be better PDF own.
> > In the site Web accessibility in mind [2] it is remarked that the
> > question of accessibility of last PDF formats when compared to HTML is
> > hot debate topic (doing me to doubt your emphasized *are* and *NOT*
> > words). They discuss different limitations of the PDF 'accessible'
> > format and conclude "Although Adobe is doing a better job of removing
> > accessibility barriers from their product, HTML is still the preferred
> > web format by the majority of users with disabilities."
> I find it amusing how many people cite web references as if they are
> some sort of unquestionable truth, yet they are rarely peer reviewed,
> seldom provide any credentials and are really often based on nothing
> more than opinion. While I'm not saying this is the case with all the
> references you have posted, I do find some are really just one groups
> opinion and as such, are no more compelling than any other opinion
> (including my own).
Yes, when you are new to some field it is difficult value corectly
references (this _is_ also true for peer-review sources). But i find
next dilema. I am generating a new website and try to offer maximum
accessibility possible (for a given money). Then i can a) To follow
guidelines of websites and other references on accessibility. b) To
follow you, citing a so Tim X on a newsgroup who said me the contrary.
I am not sure but think this newsgroup is not peer-reviewed :] Is it?
I am not saying your information was not useful accurate or so. Simply
stating my position as outsider. I wait to improve my knowledge on
those topics and taking a decision by myself in a future.
> > Fortunately, MS Word 2007 format follows some of guidelines some of us
> > are claiming during time for online publishing. In OMML, the
> > TeX/LaTeX/MathML structural model is _not_ used and both the numerator
> > and denominator are tagged explicitly [3]. Therefore at least one
> > mainstream model will be minimally acceptable.
>
> Maybe acceptable to some, but not acceptable to me. I'm not at all
> interested in what MS Word can do until they make the whole authoring
> process far less painful. Actually, even then I'm not interested
> because I use mainly MAC and Linux anyway and I have a philosophical
> and ethical issue with their business practices and have not yet seen
> enough proof of their claims to be moving towards open standards
> and/or making their proprietary standards open and usable by others
> without the threat of patent violation suits etc.
I said MS Word format not MS Word. The format is open and is being
standarized by ECMA (and probably we will see a ISO standard). Nobody
impedes the design of tools from third parties.
> We are back to square one again! I disagree that TeX is too complex
> for what it does.
And again i state i disagree with you.
> What it does, I don't think any other system does
> better. You have yet to show another working system what produces as
> good printed results as TeX which is less complex.
Ok, no problem with that but no today :]
> I do agree that TeX may not be any good for on-line rendering - but
> that is not what it was designed for. However, I doubt any really good
> on-line rendering system will be less complex that TeX - I suspect it
> will be more complex.
In some parts as automatic line breaking, structure, color management,
liquid layout or dinamic features? Sure! In other parts as ugly metric
structure of fonts and layout rules? No!
I state you reduce new functionality -avoding specific needs for online
publishing- to that subset already available in TeX/LaTeX today, then
the system will be simpler, because we are eliminating redundancies and
uneeded difficulties on original TeX design.
> > Next MS Word format (being currently standarized at ECMA) has
> > interesting features do not supported on TeX systems, such as a true
> > prescript model, real Unicode support, interesting automatic breaks or
> > being based on fonts optimized for online.
>
> How is this going to be any different from the on-line PDF documents
> which you have already stated are not true on-line publishing? Are we
> all going to have to have MS Word renderers built into our web
> browsers?
It is XML, therefore one would wait XML browsers with built-in
capabilities as in other XML/HTML technologies and not different from
the need to dowload and install last version of Adobe PDF.
I Do not know details for MS Word and the ECMA format is still being
debated on ECMA body.
Even today, thanks to a better design that for other XML formats from
W3C we could render a lot of Word math reusing any today CSS 2.1
capable browser.
Since it is a XML format you can easily convert it to other formats.
You could convert it to SVG for instance or some aural XML format. Of
course, you can also convert to TeX/LaTeX.
> > Please read the FAQ i already cited [6]. They say why rejected
> > TeX/LaTeX; it was not because complexity but because limitation of
> > TeX/LaTeX.
>
> You have misread my argument completely. I am not suggesting TeX is
> suitable for on-line publishing - in fact, quite the opposite. TeX is
> *not* suitable for on-line publishing because it was not designed for
> that purpose and does not meet the unique requirements of such a
> dynamic environment. What I disagree with is your suggestion that this
> is because TeX is too complex.
Well i tried to be polite but i may add that you are sistematically
putting in my writtings stuff i NEVER said. I carefully corrected this
two or three times and suggested you to re-read me and the FAQ.
I never said that TeX was not suitable for on-line publising because
being too complex. Both the FAQ and me are very clear at this point. We
are claiming that TeX is too limited in funcionality. TeX was not
rejected for online maths or electronic publishing because too complex
but because limited funcionality. My words were clear.
> > it was ***not*** because complexity but because ***limitation*** of
> > TeX/LaTeX.
You aparently are unable to read and understand i am saying:
1) TeX is too complex for it does.
2) TeX is not suitable for web because too limited. In some sense
because is too simple.
Are two different points you still insist on mixing.
> I find the suggestion that anyone will be able to develop a
> rendering system which is less complex than TeX for on-line rendering
> which produces as good (or better) results than TeX's printed
> rendering is rediculous.
Sorry to say this but your personal findings are of none importance at
this point. What matter are results not comments from anyone never see
the project is being developed :]
> > I am really impressed by these thoughts, until now i had not think on
> > this enough. Thanks! Have you some link or formal citation i could use?
> >
>
> I have no references - it is just my experience after 20 years of
> working with a number of different languages.
Then it is of no real help and maybe even your subjective opinion. I
cannot cite a so Tim X said me in a newsgroup... in the paper on
CanonML syntax.
> I do think being overly
> concerned about parenthesis is misguided - I also don't understand why
> people criticise lisp's parenthesis, yet will right XML documents full
> of < and >
Agree. Usually a pair of LISP () are two pairs <> more the /
> ( I also beleive that ISO 12083 has been referred to as a
> "tag soup" and quite a nightmare to work with.
Was archiving processing system, not authoring one. However it
benefited from SGML capabilities as shorthands and DTD-based
autoclosing tag features are not available on XML world. Also math
markup was less verbose than MathML and its mo-mi-mn tag soup.
> Lisp parenthesis are
> easily ignored and not a problem.
I recommend LISPers abandon of list syntax by something with more
parentheses but more close to underlying data structure:
(A B C) ==> (A.(B.(C.NIL)))
> I also don't understand people's
> issue with prefix and obsession with infix - one of the things I love
> about Lisp is not having to constantly think about operator precedence
Infix syntax is not equal to arithmetic syntax. Operator precedence is
for the latter no for infix. Infix has several advantages over prefix
apart from readability. I already discussed about this in c.l.l.
> I find rules and equations extremely easy to read/write with prefix
> notation - its just different and takes some adjustment. Once you have
> adjusted to it, the greater simplicity of parsing prefix would seem to
> justify the transition effort.
Maybe works for you (i do not know your level of maths) but experience
proves the contrary. Mathematicians reject a full prefix notation. And
LISPers as Norvig or Paul Graham recognize that the prefix notation is
not optimal for math.
Juan R. wrote:
> Maybe works for you (i do not know your level of maths) but experience
> proves the contrary. Mathematicians reject a full prefix notation. And
> LISPers as Norvig or Paul Graham recognize that the prefix notation is
> not optimal for math.
Since lisp is a programming language, not a math language, that
"recognition" doesn't mean what you think that it does. (Programming
isn't math.)
Prefix is a superior programming language notation.
-andy
John Thingstad ha escrito:
> On Fri, 29 Dec 2006 14:19:27 +0100, Juan R.
> <··············@canonicalscience.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> It is thus not a infix operator.
>
> You are missing the point.
> These conversions
> '(one . two) => (cons (quote one) (quote two))
> '(one two) => (list (quote one) (quote two))
> `(one ,two) => (list (quote one) two)
> are just there for convenience.
>
> They are bijective transforms. (equivalence relation)
> Thus in a mathematical sense they are not operators.
Well, i already explained difference between operators at S-expr syntax
and operators at LISP forms. I also indicated those infix 'syntax'
operators are available on Unicode, the <space> separating two atoms in
(A B) closely correspond to the available Unicode infix operator called
'invisible comma operator'. I did search and code is U+2063, also
called invisible separator. Of course, it is called operator because is
an operator even if you claim the contrary :]
It is called invisible because playing the same role that a visible
(A,B) when denoting lists, that interestingly was the *original*
McCarthy syntax for LISP.
Relaxing the syntax, eliminating the commas, is a 'modern' convention.
But i have an old book on LISP where the original syntax with commas is
still discussed and (A B) == (A,B).
In the three cases
(one . two)
(one two) == (one . (two . NIL))
(one , two) == (one two)
(By comma notation, I did mean McCarthy original notation _equivalent_
to space notation)
the <space> the <.> and the <,> are infix operator for the S-expr. Of
course are _not_ operators at the 'semantic' level (i.e. LISP expr) but
i already clarified this.
I cannot explain this in a different way. LISP uses infix at the very
fundamental level, which is interesting for a community cannot usually
see beyond prefix.
> Yes it is true that reader macros offer the opportunity for infix syntax.
No in the sense of a _true_ infix syntax, just the same LISP macro
cosmetics has sistematically failed during decades to work.
"Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
> Andy Freeman ha escrito:
>
>> That's why function
>> application almost always uses prefix and parens.
>
> I thought was just the inverse! On all literature i am revising
> function application is infix. E.g. Miranda/Haskell f x has tree
> structure
>
> @
> / \
> / \
> f x
>
> where @ denotes the function application operator.
>
> In Unicode one finds the character (U+2061) for that.
>
> In some 'applicative' languages justaposition means function
> application, but in reality f x means <f><U+2061><x>.
That's why in Lisp we write (f x) instead of f(x): actually we'd write
<U+2061>(f x) but since <U+2061> didn't exist, we just ignored it. ;-)
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
HEALTH WARNING: Care should be taken when lifting this product,
since its mass, and thus its weight, is dependent on its velocity
relative to the user.
Pascal Bourguignon ha escrito:
> "Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
>
> > Andy Freeman ha escrito:
> >
> >> That's why function
> >> application almost always uses prefix and parens.
> >
> > I thought was just the inverse! On all literature i am revising
> > function application is infix. E.g. Miranda/Haskell f x has tree
> > structure
> >
> > @
> > / \
> > / \
> > f x
> >
> > where @ denotes the function application operator.
> >
> > In Unicode one finds the character (U+2061) for that.
> >
> > In some 'applicative' languages justaposition means function
> > application, but in reality f x means <f><U+2061><x>.
>
> That's why in Lisp we write (f x) instead of f(x): actually we'd write
Hum! I did not talk about f(x) but about f x with or without brackets
around: f x; (f x); [f x];...
> <U+2061>(f x) but since <U+2061> didn't exist, we just ignored it. ;-)
Hum! since Unicode character is infix... In fact, (f x) does not always
denotes function application in LISP true?
(f <U+2061> x) is usually shorthened by (f x)
but (quote x) does not mean (quote <U+2061> x) or is it?
On Fri, 22 Dec 2006 15:57:42 +0100, Juan R.
<··············@canonicalscience.com> wrote:
One final comment.
I think electronic publishing is more general than publishing browsable
text
in a browser. Personally i couldn't care less if I write a report and the
user can
then read it on the screen or if he has to print it first. If the
information
is conveyed the the task is accomplished.
A MathML that worked in all situations would be welcome.
But WYSIWIG has never beaten printer spesific output yet.
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
"Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
> Electronic publishing is different. TeX cannot be used for
> electronic publishing and is _not_.
It is used. Almost all scientific papers in mathematics and computer
science are typeset in TeX.
> Therein MathML folks rejected TeX and developed presentation MathML.
And almost nobody uses MathML. I've never seen it in use.
> TeX engine follows a metric procedure is unnecesarily complex for
> 80-90% of cases.
Who cares whether it's complex? What matters is that it gives
excellent results. What do you propose instead?
> I can do that selecting a Arial, Times or Comic Sans font. I can resize
> my browser, can print, can change font on the fly, can copy and paste,
> do animations... Can you?
I haven't heard of a WWW browser which has a line breaking algorithm
at least as good as TeX (which considers whole paragraph instead of
being greedy), or word breaking algorithm, or formula typesetting
system.
MathML support is broken in my Mozilla 1.5.0.6. I've googled for
examples: positioning of symbols is often completely wrong (about two
lines too high or too low), wrong symbols are substituted (a bullet in
place of a summation sign, Greek letters in place of Latin letters),
large parens don't look like parens at all, rendering is awfully slow,
and some examples cause the rendering engine to hang. Other browsers
don't support MathML at all.
--
__("< Marcin Kowalczyk
\__/ ······@knm.org.pl
^^ http://qrnik.knm.org.pl/~qrczak/
Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk wrote:
> "Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
[...]
> > Therein MathML folks rejected TeX and developed presentation MathML.
> And almost nobody uses MathML. I've never seen it in use.
MathML syntax is ludicrously verbose, a malady it shares with much of
the *ML world, making it pretty agonizing to write without specialized
and often annoying tools. TeX is a bit clunky, but writimg it with an
ordinary text editor isn't too tough. Writing your own macros can make
it downright pleasant.
I encountered Common Lisp when a friend IMed me a link to /Practical
Common Lisp/ after I enthused about writing TeX macros to write macros
to write macros....
Cheers,
Pillsy
Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk ha escrito:
> "Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
>
> > Electronic publishing is different. TeX cannot be used for
> > electronic publishing and is _not_.
>
> It is used. Almost all scientific papers in mathematics and computer
> science are typeset in TeX.
Do not true. TeX is mostly popular at mathematics and high-energy
physics. It is not in other disciplines as chemistry or biology. I know
colleagues working in environmental science or hydrodynamics of Rias
never using TeX for preparing articles. I know physical chemists never
using TeX. The prefered format for several ACS journals is not TeX. And
as said even APS now accept Word submission because were asked by
physicists to provide alternative to TeX (RevTeX).
TeX can be used for typesseting, but is not for electronic publishing.
All academic publishers i know use XML and SGML not TeX.
> > Therein MathML folks rejected TeX and developed presentation MathML.
>
> And almost nobody uses MathML. I've never seen it in use.
Today, publishers as Elsevier, Blackwell, ACS,... are using it. Nature
does not use it because are using ISO 12083 for SGML. Even the Wiki is
already studying its usage instead current TeX-to-GIF.
Almost none journal or scientific publisher uses TeX -even if admiting
submision of TeX files,;those are converted in house to a more reliable
format for archiving and publishing.
> > TeX engine follows a metric procedure is unnecesarily complex for
> > 80-90% of cases.
>
> Who cares whether it's complex? What matters is that it gives
> excellent results. What do you propose instead?
I suppose that TeX will be not used in next 10 years except maybe for
printing tasks. The W3C is currently designing an input syntax as
alternative to TeX. Unicode also did and it is being standarized by
ECMA.
> > I can do that selecting a Arial, Times or Comic Sans font. I can resize
> > my browser, can print, can change font on the fly, can copy and paste,
> > do animations... Can you?
>
> I haven't heard of a WWW browser which has a line breaking algorithm
> at least as good as TeX (which considers whole paragraph instead of
> being greedy), or word breaking algorithm, or formula typesetting
> system.
Please do not mix specifications with browser implementations, which
are often limited to a subset of funcionality. Also notice HTML was not
designed for that.
> MathML support is broken in my Mozilla 1.5.0.6. I've googled for
> examples: positioning of symbols is often completely wrong (about two
> lines too high or too low), wrong symbols are substituted (a bullet in
> place of a summation sign, Greek letters in place of Latin letters),
> large parens don't look like parens at all, rendering is awfully slow,
> and some examples cause the rendering engine to hang. Other browsers
> don't support MathML at all.
Also SVG support in 1.5 is very bad and people still use the Adobe
plugin. But i cannot critize SVG by that.
"Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
>> It is used. Almost all scientific papers in mathematics and
>> computer science are typeset in TeX.
>
> Do not true. TeX is mostly popular at mathematics and high-energy
> physics. It is not in other disciplines as chemistry or biology.
I said about mathematics and computer science. I don't know about
other disciplines.
> Please do not mix specifications with browser implementations, which
> are often limited to a subset of funcionality.
Well, a specification without software is quite useless.
What software do you propose for rendering documents on screen and
on paper?
--
__("< Marcin Kowalczyk
\__/ ······@knm.org.pl
^^ http://qrnik.knm.org.pl/~qrczak/
Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk ha escrito:
> Well, a specification without software is quite useless.
Completely agree!
> What software do you propose for rendering documents on screen and
> on paper?
No room for that in this group, sorry.
On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 18:38:55 +0100, Juan R.
<··············@canonicalscience.com> wrote:
>
> I want to format \frac{a+b}{2} without needing a special font, less
> still a very boring TeX font was designed for paper. Knuth did was
> brilliant but is nothing compared with research on typesseting without
> rely on a collection of predefined static fonts.
>
Well the fonts are not exactly static.
Rather there is a two step process.
A meta language that draws the font and generates statics fonts.
And then the part that uses these static fonts in the output.
But you can specify the font size you want.
(It's just a bit more awkward than with vector fonts.)
There are many more font's at CTAN by the way.
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
John Thingstad ha escrito:
> On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 18:38:55 +0100, Juan R.
> <··············@canonicalscience.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > I want to format \frac{a+b}{2} without needing a special font, less
> > still a very boring TeX font was designed for paper. Knuth did was
> > brilliant but is nothing compared with research on typesseting without
> > rely on a collection of predefined static fonts.
> >
>
> Well the fonts are not exactly static.
> Rather there is a two step process.
> A meta language that draws the font and generates statics fonts.
> And then the part that uses these static fonts in the output.
> But you can specify the font size you want.
> (It's just a bit more awkward than with vector fonts.)
> There are many more font's at CTAN by the way.
The font model of TeX is limited and too complex for it really does.
Yes you can specific the font-size but precisely one of reasons that
TeX was rejected for MathML was that TeX does not support dinamical
resizing of fonts. As said TeX was designed for printing on paper.
"Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
> For liquid layouts or usage of arbitrary non-TeX fonts? TeX does not
> work.
I'm not sure I understand "liquid layouts", but as far as non-TeX fonts
go, all of the PostScript fonts are supported. There is probably also
support for TrueType now as well.
What sort of fonts did you want to use that aren't supported?
> Also TeX is too black and white. Some simple extensions add \color{}.
So, then the problem is?
--
Thomas A. Russ, USC/Information Sciences Institute
Thomas A. Russ ha escrito:
> "Juan R." <··············@canonicalscience.com> writes:
>
> > For liquid layouts or usage of arbitrary non-TeX fonts? TeX does not
> > work.
>
> I'm not sure I understand "liquid layouts",
Arbitrary widht and heigh viewport, dinamical resizing...
> but as far as non-TeX fonts
> go, all of the PostScript fonts are supported. There is probably also
> support for TrueType now as well.
>
> What sort of fonts did you want to use that aren't supported?
Any font was not TeX-like. No metrics, no no-unicode, no double mode
metric, dinamical font selection...
> > Also TeX is too black and white. Some simple extensions add \color{}.
>
> So, then the problem is?
No problem if you want to print BW on paper.
Ken Tilton ha escrito:
> I told someone they should google my name, belatedly thought to check
> the results. I seem to exist only in quotations and sigs, not all of
> them from fans. No, this is not immodesty, that would be everything else
> I post; for this I have a different ulterior motive.
Yes, it is immodesty and vanish, as always is on you. There is not
different ulterior motive, but just an excuse.
Javier wrote:
> Ken Tilton ha escrito:
>
>
>>I told someone they should google my name, belatedly thought to check
>>the results. I seem to exist only in quotations and sigs, not all of
>>them from fans. No, this is not immodesty, that would be everything else
>>I post; for this I have a different ulterior motive.
>
>
> Yes, it is immodesty and vanish, as always is on you. There is not
> different ulterior motive, but just an excuse.
>
<sigh> The Dalai Lama gets the same crap all the time.
ken
--
Algebra: http://www.tilton-technology.com/LispNycAlgebra1.htm
BLISS programs, they Just Work.
Never re-read, never trimmed.
- Warnock's Conjecture re Large BLISS (and Lisp) Programs