6 ms·

My personal opinion is that MathML should die. MathJax is here today and works.

sdan 8y ago
Or KaTex, which I believe is superior to MathJax.
ttoinou 8y ago
Is MathML even made to be written by hand ? Or should we use another tool that translates our formulae into MathML ? The syntax is awful and redondant
Tajnymag 8y ago
Mathml is not important for being a latex replacement, it's important for being a unified and native way to render mathematical formulas in browsers. With mathml supported by Chrome, you could instead of the whole Mathjax renderer use only a lightweight "latex/asciimath to mathml" translater and let the browser do the rendering job.
- sanxiyn 8y ago
  MathJax is a unified way to render mathematical formulas in browsers. So that only leaves "native". Why is it desirable to have "native" implementation? The usual answer is performance, but I am not aware of much performance complaint of MathJax. If not performance, how does it make sense to add more C++ code to browsers to be exploited, when memory safe JavaScript implementation is already available?
  - detaro 8y ago
    People regularly recommend other solutions over MathJax due to performance, and at least on complex pages there's a noticeable delay for it finish processing everything on the page. Is it worth it to do a native implementation because of that? maybe not, but there are issues with it.
    - sanxiyn 8y ago
      I'd much prefer optimizing MathJax over writing new C++ code in Chromium.
      - xg15 8y ago
        Even the most optimized JavaScript code will be less performant than a fully declarative language that can be directly interpreted by the layout engine. From a user standpoint, it's ridiculous that I need to have JavaScript enabled, so the browser can download and compile a separate runtime, that itself reparses the page, just so I can look at a static documents with some math symbols. Lastly, I think a common standard for math representation is valuable for the same reasons "official" <section> and <article> elements are valuable: They offer a common data model that tools, extensions and search engines can work on to provide extra functionality. A "de-facto standard" like MathJax doesn't provide this, because there is no requirement that two different sites use the same representation. The only requirement is that they put up something which the particular version of MathJax they embedded can understand. This makes things a lot harder for tools.
  - est31 8y ago
    Pages with lots of MathJax formulas take a lot of time to load.
  - aplaice 8y ago
    In addition to the already mentioned performance issue with client-side MathJax, having native MathML makes it conceptually far simpler to do more complex things with equations, both for the end user and for the developer. For instance, as a user, if you want to scale the equations by some amount or use a different maths font, it's a couple of lines of CSS, using exactly the same method you'd use to make any other changes to the appearance of a web-page. (Yes, you can easily do the former with MathJax, but I don't think the latter is possible user-side). As a developer, if you'd want to interactively highlight parts of an equation, for educational purposes, it'd be trivial with MathML, but rather hard to do nicely with MathJax (statically coloured elements are possible with MathJax, with the "color.js" extension, but not dynamically coloured ones — and no, swapping out the entire equation to make colour changes is neither nice nor scalable). Alternatively, if you want to embed equations in a diagram or a graph, it's pretty easy with MathML[0][1], but would be difficult otherwise. Obviously, all of the above is in principle possible with JavaScript implementations, but it's far harder. You might argue that this extra effort is worth the smaller attack surface. IMO, given the importance of maths and science, it isn't. Also, why do we, say, have the CSS flexbox layout? After all, we could have used javascript to arrange elements into an appropriate table or even just set the x and y positions of all elements... [0] http://fred-wang.github.io/MathUI2014/demos/2-mathml-in-svg.svg http://fred-wang.github.io/MathUI2014/demos/2-mathml-in-svg.... [1] http://fred-wang.github.io/MathUI2014/demos/6-mathml-in-webgl.html http://fred-wang.github.io/MathUI2014/demos/6-mathml-in-webg...
    - sanxiyn 8y ago
      Yes, I am also against "native" flexbox implementation. Yoga showed it's entirely possible to implement in "user level".
    - felixfbecker 8y ago
      This. There is so much gained from equations being represented as HTML elements, with full support for CSS styling and JS manipulation.
saagarjha 8y ago
MathJax requires JavaScript, though; MathML doesn't.
posix_me_less 8y ago
Using MathML notation directly isn't a bright idea and MathJax rendering kind of works, but having a formulae renderer directly in browsers/document viewers is much better. Using a javascript library or even remote http calls (!) to render static formulae on client side is extremely slow, wasteful and limiting way to render mathematical formulae.
laxd 8y ago
MathJax is too slow for more appy and interactive use cases. With firefox's native implementation I have seen nothing but "instant" rendering.
coldtea 8y ago
So, because we have a JS library, we should drop an effort to natively support first class math rendering in the browser? That's why we can't have nice things.
- jacobolus 8y ago
  It’s not first class. It’s cross-browser-inconsistent garbage layout largely unsuitable for anything but the simplest mathematical expressions, and a horrible markup syntax for authors. If MathJax or KaTeX is too slow for some purpose, someone should try to compile a more streamlined TeX renderer to wasm.
  - baq 8y ago
    The article is about fixing all those issues.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    First of all, it can be used as a target for any markup syntax if authors don't like it. The syntax is an irrelevant part of the feature (in fact MathJax already supports it). Second, it is first class. "cross-browser-inconsistent" is not an argument that it's not first class, tons of things are inconsistent (JS features, CSS implementations, etc). Third, you missed the whole idea that the proposal is about enhancing the rendering, and also has buy-in from Mozilla people. >If MathJax or KaTeX is too slow for some purpose, someone should try to compile a more streamlined TeX renderer to wasm. That's not even wrong. It's beyond right and wrong, into the realm of crazy.
    - jacobolus 8y ago
      It’s confusing to use the term “first class” when what you mean is “mediocre but built in”. The standard English definition of that term is “highest quality”. There are certainly many parts of CSS that I would not consider first class. > The syntax is an irrelevant part of the feature This viewpoint explains a lot about web technology. The syntax doesn’t matter. The visual output doesn’t matter. Practical adoption by users doesn’t matter. All that matters is ticking features down on a checklist somewhere.
aplaice 8y ago
MathML is here today and works in Firefox. I use it on Wikipedia[0], which is the only major ("non-niche"[1]) website that provides it, and it's much nicer than the image-based equations (and much, much faster than MathJax would be). [0] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Math/advancedSettings#CSS_for_the_MathML_with_SVG_fallback_mode https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Math/advancedSettin... [1] not that "niche" websites like nLab[2] should be disregarded, since the web was originally designed to help scientists... [2] https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/HomePage https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/HomePage
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- xorand 8y ago
  arXiv.org uses MathJax. https://arxiv.org/help/mathjax https://arxiv.org/help/mathjax
snicker7 8y ago
Mathjax is slow and requires client side JavaScript.
- gwern 8y ago
  You can render Mathjax offline for non-interactive purposes (ie most use-cases) using 'mathjax-node-page'. I recently implemented this for my website; now pages like https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection display math instantly (instead of requiring ~5s - it's a big page), and also no longer require the MathJax JS, just the fonts/CSS.

sdan 8y ago

Or KaTex, which I believe is superior to MathJax.

Is MathML even made to be written by hand ? Or should we use another tool that translates our formulae into MathML ? The syntax is awful and redondant

Tajnymag 8y ago

Mathml is not important for being a latex replacement, it's important for being a unified and native way to render mathematical formulas in browsers. With mathml supported by Chrome, you could instead of the whole Mathjax renderer use only a lightweight "latex/asciimath to mathml" translater and let the browser do the rendering job.

sanxiyn 8y ago
MathJax is a unified way to render mathematical formulas in browsers. So that only leaves "native". Why is it desirable to have "native" implementation? The usual answer is performance, but I am not aware of much performance complaint of MathJax. If not performance, how does it make sense to add more C++ code to browsers to be exploited, when memory safe JavaScript implementation is already available?
- detaro 8y ago
  People regularly recommend other solutions over MathJax due to performance, and at least on complex pages there's a noticeable delay for it finish processing everything on the page. Is it worth it to do a native implementation because of that? maybe not, but there are issues with it.
  - sanxiyn 8y ago
    I'd much prefer optimizing MathJax over writing new C++ code in Chromium.
    - xg15 8y ago
      Even the most optimized JavaScript code will be less performant than a fully declarative language that can be directly interpreted by the layout engine. From a user standpoint, it's ridiculous that I need to have JavaScript enabled, so the browser can download and compile a separate runtime, that itself reparses the page, just so I can look at a static documents with some math symbols. Lastly, I think a common standard for math representation is valuable for the same reasons "official" <section> and <article> elements are valuable: They offer a common data model that tools, extensions and search engines can work on to provide extra functionality. A "de-facto standard" like MathJax doesn't provide this, because there is no requirement that two different sites use the same representation. The only requirement is that they put up something which the particular version of MathJax they embedded can understand. This makes things a lot harder for tools.
- est31 8y ago
  Pages with lots of MathJax formulas take a lot of time to load.
- aplaice 8y ago
  In addition to the already mentioned performance issue with client-side MathJax, having native MathML makes it conceptually far simpler to do more complex things with equations, both for the end user and for the developer. For instance, as a user, if you want to scale the equations by some amount or use a different maths font, it's a couple of lines of CSS, using exactly the same method you'd use to make any other changes to the appearance of a web-page. (Yes, you can easily do the former with MathJax, but I don't think the latter is possible user-side). As a developer, if you'd want to interactively highlight parts of an equation, for educational purposes, it'd be trivial with MathML, but rather hard to do nicely with MathJax (statically coloured elements are possible with MathJax, with the "color.js" extension, but not dynamically coloured ones — and no, swapping out the entire equation to make colour changes is neither nice nor scalable). Alternatively, if you want to embed equations in a diagram or a graph, it's pretty easy with MathML[0][1], but would be difficult otherwise. Obviously, all of the above is in principle possible with JavaScript implementations, but it's far harder. You might argue that this extra effort is worth the smaller attack surface. IMO, given the importance of maths and science, it isn't. Also, why do we, say, have the CSS flexbox layout? After all, we could have used javascript to arrange elements into an appropriate table or even just set the x and y positions of all elements... [0] http://fred-wang.github.io/MathUI2014/demos/2-mathml-in-svg.svg http://fred-wang.github.io/MathUI2014/demos/2-mathml-in-svg.... [1] http://fred-wang.github.io/MathUI2014/demos/6-mathml-in-webgl.html http://fred-wang.github.io/MathUI2014/demos/6-mathml-in-webg...
  - sanxiyn 8y ago
    Yes, I am also against "native" flexbox implementation. Yoga showed it's entirely possible to implement in "user level".
  - felixfbecker 8y ago
    This. There is so much gained from equations being represented as HTML elements, with full support for CSS styling and JS manipulation.

saagarjha 8y ago

MathJax requires JavaScript, though; MathML doesn't.

posix_me_less 8y ago

Using MathML notation directly isn't a bright idea and MathJax rendering kind of works, but having a formulae renderer directly in browsers/document viewers is much better. Using a javascript library or even remote http calls (!) to render static formulae on client side is extremely slow, wasteful and limiting way to render mathematical formulae.

laxd 8y ago

MathJax is too slow for more appy and interactive use cases. With firefox's native implementation I have seen nothing but "instant" rendering.

coldtea 8y ago

So, because we have a JS library, we should drop an effort to natively support first class math rendering in the browser? That's why we can't have nice things.

jacobolus 8y ago
It’s not first class. It’s cross-browser-inconsistent garbage layout largely unsuitable for anything but the simplest mathematical expressions, and a horrible markup syntax for authors. If MathJax or KaTeX is too slow for some purpose, someone should try to compile a more streamlined TeX renderer to wasm.
- baq 8y ago
  The article is about fixing all those issues.
- coldtea 8y ago
  First of all, it can be used as a target for any markup syntax if authors don't like it. The syntax is an irrelevant part of the feature (in fact MathJax already supports it). Second, it is first class. "cross-browser-inconsistent" is not an argument that it's not first class, tons of things are inconsistent (JS features, CSS implementations, etc). Third, you missed the whole idea that the proposal is about enhancing the rendering, and also has buy-in from Mozilla people. >If MathJax or KaTeX is too slow for some purpose, someone should try to compile a more streamlined TeX renderer to wasm. That's not even wrong. It's beyond right and wrong, into the realm of crazy.
  - jacobolus 8y ago
    It’s confusing to use the term “first class” when what you mean is “mediocre but built in”. The standard English definition of that term is “highest quality”. There are certainly many parts of CSS that I would not consider first class. > The syntax is an irrelevant part of the feature This viewpoint explains a lot about web technology. The syntax doesn’t matter. The visual output doesn’t matter. Practical adoption by users doesn’t matter. All that matters is ticking features down on a checklist somewhere.

aplaice 8y ago

MathML is here today and works in Firefox. I use it on Wikipedia[0], which is the only major ("non-niche"[1]) website that provides it, and it's much nicer than the image-based equations (and much, much faster than MathJax would be). [0] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Math/advancedSettings#CSS_for_the_MathML_with_SVG_fallback_mode https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Math/advancedSettin... [1] not that "niche" websites like nLab[2] should be disregarded, since the web was originally designed to help scientists... [2] https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/HomePage https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/HomePage

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
xorand 8y ago
arXiv.org uses MathJax. https://arxiv.org/help/mathjax https://arxiv.org/help/mathjax

snicker7 8y ago

Mathjax is slow and requires client side JavaScript.

gwern 8y ago
You can render Mathjax offline for non-interactive purposes (ie most use-cases) using 'mathjax-node-page'. I recently implemented this for my website; now pages like https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection display math instantly (instead of requiring ~5s - it's a big page), and also no longer require the MathJax JS, just the fonts/CSS.