At 22:54 +0000 1998/12/12, Timothy Murphy wrote:
>As I understand it, *ML _parses_ (or tries to parse) maths,
>while Knuth in his wisdom decided this was impractical.

Knuth in _his_ wisdom decided this was impractical to _him_, as he
otherwise would have ended up with a much bigger problem. Others realize it
must eventually happen, in part because it helps typing mathematically
correct formulas, and in part because the formulas may be reused as
formulas, and not only a typeset output.

>There is a fundamental question about MathML/XML/OpenMath vs TeX/LaTeX
>which does not seem to me to have been answered here.

So even it was not answered in full, it has been discussed several times.

>The question is, then:
>is it possible to parse mathematics,
>and if so, is it wise to try?
>
>[It may be impossible,
>because it may be that mathematicians
>would refuse to be bound by any particular formal system put forward.]

I think it will be necessary with something more general, corresponding to
the Yacc/Lex programs, simply because it will not be possible to find a
generally accepted syntax.

  Hans Aberg
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