Re: XS: Ports --> math

[Sebastian Rahtz <s.rahtz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 > I found ports the hardest thing to implement in Jade.  I also think they're
 > hard to explain/understand.
 > 
 > Ports are currently essential for two flow objects:
 > 
They are used in the math flow objects; do you mean that they are not
essential there?

Which brings me to math. Jon started to say that basing XS on what
Jade had implemented was not a bad idea; but James _has_ implemented
the math objects, and I would suggest they deserve a place in
XS. Since the W3C has in parallel with XML beavered away on defining
MathML as an application of XML, it would seem perverse for XS not to
deal with it.

James raised the question of whether MathML can be dealt with by DSSSL
math flow objects; I haven't looked in any detail at all, but my
initial impression is that for the presentation math tags, it should
not be a problem. For the semantic math, other questions arise,
perhaps. One of the arguments in favour of semantic math markup is
that it provides a rational way of working out equation breaks. Since
DSSSL math is presentation-based, the wrapping DSSSL code will have to
do the understanding of semantic math, right? But its hard to do
equation breaking without font metrics, so how will DSSSL communicate
to the formatter about breaking?

Jeff Suttor mentioned this too. He can bring a clearer understanding
than me to the issue.

I'd hate to see math left aside a mad rush to support
damned silly things like <blink> :-}

Sebastian

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