David Carlisle wrote --
> > Could we please see some examples of MathML, or is it XML, macros that
> > might appear in a document?
>
> It isn't macros really (although the TeX community tends to call
> anything that results in some code running somewhere, a macro).
>
> However you can put in your document whatever you like, within
> the constraints of XML syntax. So <SteenrodAlgebra> or &MonsterGroup;
> or whatever. You can (or rather will be able to) then specify in a style
> sheet how this is supposed to get transformed to MathML.

So you cannot put these specs into the document itself

How will they typicaly look like?

Is there anything corresponding to macro parameters?


>
> > I have been reliably informed that XSL does not allow specifications
> > that are expressive enough to do this job (basically since it knows
> > nothing about maths, in the sense that it has no concept of arithmetic).
>
> If you compare the first draft submission of XSL to the first working
> draft of XSL 1.0, which came out only a few months later, you will
> see that they are essentially completely different languages.

I am not sure what I studied, but it was in mid-1997.

> XSL is a rapidly moving target, and currently it is moving behind the
> closed doors of W3C working group processes, so there is not a lot of
> point worrying now about any particular lack of features.

On the contrary, worry is all we can do, given the fate of other
attempts at formatting specification languages and their imposed model
of what a formatter is, what it can do and what interfaces it provides.

> You just have to have faith that it will be alright on the day.

I have faith in very little these days; but this is one area in which
I have nver had any.


If by chance it is not
> alright on the day, you will be able to do the transformation in a lower
> level language, such as java or ecmascript interfacing through the DOM.

What is the DOM?

> (You can't do this either at the moment as there are no math formating
> objects that you can transform to, but the public document does say
> these will be added in a later draft).

But what will "these" be?  Will they be extensible (not so much the
maths ones, I am more worried about the pargaraph ones)?

>
> Most TeX users will never want to author in XML, however there are many
> advantages in authoring in tex and  transforming to XML (even if
> eventually the document is printed by transforming back to tex).

That sounds very sensible but we (and I really do mean almost
exclusively the readers of this list) therefore need to ensure that we
can easily plug-in something based on TeX as the formatter for XML;
and we need to do this well before Sebastian send his crawler out
across the world mangling every TeX documant he can find into XML.
The race is afoot!:-)

> It gives a mechanism for consistency checking and communicating with
> the wider non-tex world, that is simply not available in an all-tex
> solution.

Agreed, although the world of those who understand the idea of a
platform-indpendent, programmable system for document processing (as
provided uniquely at present by TeX-related systems) and formatting
seems far wider to me than the world of those shackled to what giant
corporations, and sebastian, think is making people happy.


chris