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In-Reply-To:  Your message of "Wed, 11 Nov 1998 12:40:23 GMT." 
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Date:         Wed, 11 Nov 1998 13:12:39 +0000
From: Robin Fairbairns <Robin.Fairbairns@CL.CAM.AC.UK>
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To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L
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Subject:      Re: XML (was quotes, a very long time ago)
Status: R

sebastian writes:

> David Carlisle writes:
>  > it was explained that this meant basically starting school until first
>  > year University. Ie almost no 20th century mathematics. Not
>
> you and Chris sound like Simon Rattle saying that "if you listen to
> enough Luciano Berio, you'll really like it, _honest_. and that
> Dallapiccola, he'll have you on the edge of your seats"

rattle's right, of course ;-)

> the cognoscenti will realize that i stopped advancing in music about
> the same date i stopped advancing in math, ie c. 1968 [1]

(and the very fact that you're *such* a texpert reminds us all that
tex has applications beyond those for which it was originally
designed.)

however, i think you're being unfair to Them.

by common consent, the quality of tex's (and hence latex's)
typesetting of mathematics has had a significant influence on the
extent to which they've been `taken up' in many fields of endeavour.
an important one of those fields has been mathematics itself.

we are (or are supposed to be) discussing the future of latex on this
list.  in that context, the relation of latex to xml (and its friends
and relations) has arisen.  imho, it's valuable to have input from
practising mathematicians on xml's suitability as a vehicle for
`current mathematics', just as i would welcome input from a composer
on musicml's suitability for expressing dallapiccola's effusions[*].

let's not lose sight of what we're discussing, though: we need to know
if the xml-related efforts can provide us with models of what we want
to do within latex, or whether it's too restrictive for the full
generality of what latex does for people today.

robin

[*] unlikely, i would imagine: his scores look *very* odd ;-)