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