RE: support for 'macro' formatting languages

[Pieter Rijken <pieter.rijken@xxxxxx>]

> 
> > This you cannot get right with SGML, MATHML and DSSSL.
> 
> Are you sure?
> 
> MathML has/will-have at least as many possibilities for specifying
> alignments as tex. It is a pain to write by hand, and tex-to-mathml
> converters are not currently reliable enough to be used in production,
> but they will be. You will be able to author in tex (or 
> tex-like syntax) 
> and have this appear as mathml in your document.

What remember (about 3 years ago) of formatting very large expressions
in LaTeX is that the insertion of alignments was based on a trial on
error basis. As you point out the problem i mentioned may not be a problem
for TeX at all. But TeX is very sophisticated.

Suppose one would like to display the expressions both on the html,
TeX and rtf. Because three different backends are involved i could
imagine that the formatting and placing of characters, indentations,
etc. is different in all three case for the same MathML code. If
this is the case the alignments placed in MathML which may be well
placed for TeX but not so well placed for rtf.

I realise that the arguments i give are not that strong, for no
matter what, there will always remain something which formats not
quite the way you would like it to. Somewhere a line has to be
drawn where one says: this is possible and this is not or is
desired.

But discussions on this subject are interesting because they tend
sharpen the border.

regards,

pieter

-- 
Pieter Rijken                          E-mail: pieter.rijken@xxxxxx

CMG Telecommunications and Utilities B.V.
Division Advanced Technology
Nieuwekade 1-19
P.O. Box 8038                 Phone: +31 30 2339300
3503 RA Utrecht               Fax:   +31 30 2339495
The Netherlands
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