Re: XS: Ports --> math

[Sebastian Rahtz <s.rahtz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 > I'm not going to say that I am against generic math or generic 
 > tables, but merely point out that the two arguments: "It's hard" 
 > and "It's not needed by 90% of the population" are both valid ones 
 > that have been used many times in the XML discussion. The 
 > counter argument is typically "But it is still important because 

math has always been _presented_ as hard, but is it? it seems to me
that there are four issues:

 a) intra-math spacing
 b) fonts
 c) construction of extended characters (like fences)
 d) equation breaking

the claim of what I call generically `The Pikes' is that semantic
math reduces a) and d) to `easy' rules - in any case thats a matter of
establishing rules, nothing hard for the browser. c) is potentially
rather tricky - i am not sure if anyone reading can comment. b) is a
killer, of course, but thats not *hard*. The STIX project aims to
tackle that.

As for the 90%/10%, yes, its a good rule. But since math underlies
practically all of our science,  i kind of feel it should be treated
specially :-}

but i think this thread has probably gone on long enough....

sebastian

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