[Haskell-cafe] Do you trust Wikipedia?

[Jonathan Cast]

On Fri, 2007-10-19 at 02:45 +0200, jerzy.karczmarczuk at info.unicaen.fr
wrote:
> PR Stanley writes: 
> 
> > One of the reasons I'm interested in Wikipedia and Wikibook is because 
> > you're more likely to find Latex source code used for typesetting the 
> > maths.
> > Latex is the one and only 100% tool right now.
> > A lot of publishers use Latex but try to get anything from them in 
> > electronic form. 
> 
> I don't understand you. WHAT YOU WANT? 
> 
> 1. Many articles in Wikipedia typeset math formulae as *images*, you don't
>   really see the LaTeX sources. Some formulae are typed through plain HTML. 
> 
> 2. MOST journal publishers who recommend LaTeX give you the appropriate
>   .cls files. Kluwer, Journal of Functional Programming, etc. Sometimes
>   the attached manuals contain formulae. Whom did you ask, and what did
>   you want? 
> 
> 3. LaTeX is NOT the one and only one. Texts which should be printed, OK,
>   I format in LaTeX. Presentations on screen, my lectures, seminars, etc.
>   I format in MathML, and I show using Mozilla, etc., standard navigator.
>   Of course, making MathML by hand is like eating oysters with shells. 
> 
>   I recommend then the script of Peter Jipsen
>   http://www1.chapman.edu/~jipsen/mathml/asciimath.html
>   which permits you to write your formulae intuitively, and fast. And
>   reasonably well, although the comparison with LaTeX would be difficult. 

This is my problem with XML --- the syntax is so verbose, people are
driven to *author* in anything but XML.  TeX can be authored directly,
by a real person, using a standard text editor.  Infinitely superior to
XML.

jcc