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From: Chris Rowley <C.A.Rowley@OPEN.AC.UK>
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Subject:      Re: what is a latex command
Status: R

Sebastian Rahtz wrote --
>  > >  >   http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/raman/raman.html
>  > > not, of course, a full LaTeX interpreter
>  >
>  > Of course??  I defer to your detailed knowledge.
> I don't think Raman ever claimed to be able to process arbitrary LaTeX;
> yes, i talked to him about it in 1995

Ah well, I sent him lots of things to render and he did them all (also
in 1995).

>
>  > I think you (and maybe they, but maybe not) misunderstand MathML.  One
>  > of the many requirements for the success of MathML is considered (by
>  > its creators, amongst others) to be applications that can parse
>  > "TeX" and turn it into MathML.
> really? you do surprise me. but thats for legacy purposes, or ongoing
> input? Elsevier's latex2sgml will do the job just fine for you :-}

ongoing input, for the reasons other people have described on this
list: lots of people now like to write in TeX, especially maths; I do
not claim to understand this phneomenon but some of my best friends ...
and all that.

>
> but i just dont see what you imagine will happen for author X.

I am really describing other people's imaginations: and they do seem
rather confused.

> do they
> continue to author in LaTeX(3)? do they write SGML with embedded
> constrained TeX for maths? how do you see X working in 3 years?
> will she really _see_ TeX code?

Were I a betting person I would put quite a lot of money on there
being a lot of people using comparatively dumb editors to enter
LaTeX (and AMSTeX) code in 3 years time.

I should like, for myself, a highly configurable, intelligent but
liberal, teachable editor/environment that could understand my
pathetic attempts to create masterpieces of mathematics and that could
input/output in any reasonable standard format.

But would anything from the TeX world count as a "reasonable standard
format"?  The pragmatic answer to this question now and in 3 years is:
somehow "TeX" has to be in this list since it is a "major ad hoc standard".

I am Not answering all your questions, I know.  I do not think there
is one answer, and I do not think anyone knows.  I am sure that such
things will become more diverse and complex rather than less; but that
is not a reason for not getting stuck in and producing useful
standards and tools to make them accessible and useful.


chris