Received: from webgate.proteosys.de (mail.proteosys-ag.com [62.225.9.49]) by lucy.proteosys (8.11.0/8.9.3/SuSE Linux 8.9.3-0.1) with ESMTP id f4QA7rf21936 for ; Sat, 26 May 2001 12:07:53 +0200 Received: by webgate.proteosys.de (8.11.0/8.11.0) with ESMTP id f4QA7q721837 . for ; Sat, 26 May 2001 12:07:52 +0200 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C0E5CB.BA1DA280" Received: from mail.Uni-Mainz.DE (mailserver1.zdv.Uni-Mainz.DE [134.93.8.30]) by mailgate2.zdv.Uni-Mainz.DE (8.11.0/8.10.2) with ESMTP id f4QA7q010397 for ; Sat, 26 May 2001 12:07:52 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from mailgate1.zdv.Uni-Mainz.DE (mailgate1.zdv.Uni-Mainz.DE [134.93.8.56]) by mail.Uni-Mainz.DE (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA05983 for ; Sat, 26 May 2001 12:07:51 +0200 (MEST) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Received: from mail.listserv.gmd.de (mail.listserv.gmd.de [192.88.97.5]) by mailgate1.zdv.Uni-Mainz.DE (8.11.0/8.10.2) with ESMTP id f4QA7pU12657 for ; Sat, 26 May 2001 12:07:51 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from mail.listserv.gmd.de (192.88.97.5) by mail.listserv.gmd.de (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <1.ACFD7D94@mail.listserv.gmd.de>; Sat, 26 May 2001 12:05:53 +0200 Received: from RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE by RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8b) with spool id 496894 for LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE; Sat, 26 May 2001 12:07:47 +0200 Received: from ix.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (mail.urz.uni-heidelberg.de [129.206.119.234]) by relay.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA29690 for ; Sat, 26 May 2001 12:07:46 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from relay.uni-heidelberg.de (relay.uni-heidelberg.de [129.206.100.212]) by ix.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA103760 for ; Sat, 26 May 2001 12:07:47 +0200 Received: from wisbech.cl.cam.ac.uk (mta1.cl.cam.ac.uk [128.232.0.15]) by relay.uni-heidelberg.de (8.10.2+Sun/8.10.2) with ESMTP id f4QA7l129038 for ; Sat, 26 May 2001 12:07:47 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from pallas.cl.cam.ac.uk ([128.232.8.88] helo=cl.cam.ac.uk ident=rf) by wisbech.cl.cam.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 3.092 #1) id 153az4-0000Qk-00 for LATEX-L@URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE; Sat, 26 May 2001 11:07:46 +0100 In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 24 May 2001 23:05:57 CDT." <200105251810.NAA04772@riemann.math.twsu.edu> Return-Path: Content-class: urn:content-classes:message Subject: Re: Multilingual Encodings Summary 2.2 Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 11:07:46 +0100 Message-ID: X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: From: "Robin Fairbairns" Sender: "Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project" To: "Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L" Reply-To: "Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project" Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 4104 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------_=_NextPart_001_01C0E5CB.BA1DA280 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable > On 05/21/2001 at 11:20 PM, Lars Hellstr=F6m = > wrote: > > >At least about this aspect of it we can do something. The guidance = given > >by LaTeX manuals and the like on what is sensible and what is not is, = in > >this area, rather important. > > It may be important to LaTeX designers, but it is totally irrelevant = to > working mathematicians, who will use whatever symbols they deem > appropriate with no deference to anyone else's notions of propriety. > Collaborations have been known to spend more time arguing about = notation > than proving theorems. the great thing about a markup language like latex is that you can define a macro \thing, and each collaborator can use his/her own representation of \thing. what's more, at publication time, you may find that some other group has cornered the market in the representation of the object you defined as \thing, and you can _all_ change to the now "generally accepted" version. semantic markup works: i commend it to you all... (i first learnt of set notation from reading whitehead and russell in my spare time at school. they used (as it were) \epsilon for set membership; if they'd been marking up using (la)tex they could easily have used their own \belongs which they would have defined as a mathop variant of \epsilon, but we would redefine for the 2001 edition (!) as \in or whatever.) in short, i don't think latex actually _needs_ to descend to the level of the mathematicians' squabbles about notation: latex markup can deal with more-or-less anything. the unicode bods _do_ exist at that level, though. fortunately we merrily sail along at a far higher level. r ------_=_NextPart_001_01C0E5CB.BA1DA280 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Re: Multilingual Encodings Summary 2.2

> On 05/21/2001 at 11:20 PM, Lars Hellstr=F6m = <Lars.Hellstrom@MATH.UMU.SE>
> wrote:
>
> >At least about this aspect of it we can do = something. The guidance given
> >by LaTeX manuals and the like on what is = sensible and what is not is, in
> >this area, rather important.
>
> It may be important to LaTeX designers, but it = is totally irrelevant to
> working mathematicians, who will use whatever = symbols they deem
> appropriate with no deference to anyone else's = notions of propriety.
> Collaborations have been known to spend more = time arguing about notation
> than proving theorems.

the great thing about a markup language like latex is = that you can
define a macro \thing, and each collaborator can use = his/her own
representation of \thing.  what's more, at = publication time, you may
find that some other group has cornered the market in = the
representation of the object you defined as \thing, = and you can _all_
change to the now "generally accepted" = version.

semantic markup works: i commend it to you = all...

(i first learnt of set notation from reading whitehead = and russell in
my spare time at school.  they used (as it were) = \epsilon for set
membership; if they'd been marking up using (la)tex = they could easily
have used their own \belongs which they would have = defined as a mathop
variant of \epsilon, but we would redefine for the = 2001 edition (!) as
\in or whatever.)

in short, i don't think latex actually _needs_ to = descend to the level
of the mathematicians' squabbles about notation: = latex markup can deal
with more-or-less anything.

the unicode bods _do_ exist at that level, = though.  fortunately we
merrily sail along at a far higher level.

r

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