LYNX-DEV MathML

[Philip Webb]

[ this looks as if it might have some long-term relevance to Lynx ]

Problem solved -- Mary Parlange, Baltimore -- New Scientist 980402
   
Mathematicians & scientists have been frustrated with HTML's inability
to include mathematical expressions.  To show an equation on a WWW page,
researchers must create it in an editing program, save it as an image file
in GIF or JPEG & embed the image into the HTML.  Images take a long time
to load & equations can't be cut & pasted like text; you can't index them
or search a database for parts of equations: "Right now, you have to go
thro' a lot of contortions", says Jim Martino, calculus (Johns Hopkins U).
As on-line books & journals proliferate, so do GIF files: the American
Mathematical Soc says there are " c 2 M  graphics on our WWW server".
                                      
This is to change: W3C is due to give the new MathML a `recommendation',
the closest it gets to defining a standard, essentially giving programmers
the go-ahead to develop applications for MathML.
   
MathML is the result of  > 2 yrs  negotiations & fits seamlessly
into the software mathematicians & scientists already use.  It was not easy:
"People are quite fussy about the way math is presented, the way it looks,
what they can do", says Patrick Ion, Co-chairman, W3C working group.
MathML is not simple: "It's not the sort of thing you really want to edit
by hand", says W3C member Dave Raggett: mark-up will have to be encoded
by software that will presumably be included in equation editors.
There are already several prototype plug-in programs that adapt WWW browsers
for MathML & eventually plug-ins won't be necessary.
   
MathML is an application of XML, which W3C recommended as successor to HTML
980210: "I think everybody expects to see wholesale migration HTML -> XML",
says Rob Miner, another WG Co-chairman.

  MathML --  www.w3.org/Math/

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