5 ms·

html + js is already a computable document format, and it runs everywhere, not in a proprietary viewer. Pretty sure this won't catch on.

mey 15y ago
html + js doesn't have a standard way to be shared outside a website. Additionally, the skills to produce an interactive cross system compatible diagram in html/js is outside most people's abilities. Additionally have you seen the horrible code that most wysiwyg editors produce? I think this will have a niche purpose, but I doubt it will succeed without some big player picking it up and running with it. (MS Office, Apple?) An additional thought, could probably take these documents (haven't looked at the spec) and generate an html/js representation easily enough.
- mvanveen 15y ago
  Well, yes. You bring up good points. However, engineers like ourselves caught up in the goal of creating a One True System often run into the dilemma of pursuing the "MIT way" of doing things. I remember hearing that there was an MIT project that had many common goals with Tim Berner Lee's implementation of the World Wide Web. It never saw the light of day because the engineers were worried to death about how documents would appear if there was a connectivity problem. Lee sidestepped that whole mess by showing the good old 404 page. Premature optimization is the devil. The prevalence of html + js today is a testament to the fact that the ["worse is better"](http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html) design philosophy has its merits. I don't think this common document format will take off b/c of the same reasons that every other document format that isn't html + json has failed. I believe that if the browser wars have taught us anything, it's that iterative approach is the only thing which will move us closer to realizing some of your goals.
- icebraining 15y ago
  >html + js doesn't have a standard way to be shared outside a website. Sure it does, just send an .html file. With the <script> and <style> tags and data: URIs to embed images, what more do you need? Hell, you can even distribute sound: http://softwareas.com/offline-sound-no-flash-no-file http://softwareas.com/offline-sound-no-flash-no-file
msutherl 15y ago
Where this will catch on is with people who need a world-class CAS or some other features of Mathematica and want to publish documents with live graphs in them, for instance interactive textbooks. I use Mathematica for studying and in my research and I can definitely see myself using this to publish simply because there's no other tool that comes close. If we're lucky it will inspire an open-source duplication effort like SAGE. That said, I agree it probably won't catch on like PDF. Wolfram has a terrible hyper-proprietary attitude that just doesn't resonate well with the developer community at large. It's unfortunate because Mathematica is an absolutely stunning piece of software.
- thret 15y ago
  The phrase 'interactive textbooks' is very interesting. A kindle textbook, where you could play with values and see the results... That's something I would like to see in highschools.

mey 15y ago

html + js doesn't have a standard way to be shared outside a website. Additionally, the skills to produce an interactive cross system compatible diagram in html/js is outside most people's abilities. Additionally have you seen the horrible code that most wysiwyg editors produce? I think this will have a niche purpose, but I doubt it will succeed without some big player picking it up and running with it. (MS Office, Apple?) An additional thought, could probably take these documents (haven't looked at the spec) and generate an html/js representation easily enough.

mvanveen 15y ago
Well, yes. You bring up good points. However, engineers like ourselves caught up in the goal of creating a One True System often run into the dilemma of pursuing the "MIT way" of doing things. I remember hearing that there was an MIT project that had many common goals with Tim Berner Lee's implementation of the World Wide Web. It never saw the light of day because the engineers were worried to death about how documents would appear if there was a connectivity problem. Lee sidestepped that whole mess by showing the good old 404 page. Premature optimization is the devil. The prevalence of html + js today is a testament to the fact that the ["worse is better"](http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html) design philosophy has its merits. I don't think this common document format will take off b/c of the same reasons that every other document format that isn't html + json has failed. I believe that if the browser wars have taught us anything, it's that iterative approach is the only thing which will move us closer to realizing some of your goals.
icebraining 15y ago
>html + js doesn't have a standard way to be shared outside a website. Sure it does, just send an .html file. With the <script> and <style> tags and data: URIs to embed images, what more do you need? Hell, you can even distribute sound: http://softwareas.com/offline-sound-no-flash-no-file http://softwareas.com/offline-sound-no-flash-no-file

msutherl 15y ago

Where this will catch on is with people who need a world-class CAS or some other features of Mathematica and want to publish documents with live graphs in them, for instance interactive textbooks. I use Mathematica for studying and in my research and I can definitely see myself using this to publish simply because there's no other tool that comes close. If we're lucky it will inspire an open-source duplication effort like SAGE. That said, I agree it probably won't catch on like PDF. Wolfram has a terrible hyper-proprietary attitude that just doesn't resonate well with the developer community at large. It's unfortunate because Mathematica is an absolutely stunning piece of software.

thret 15y ago
The phrase 'interactive textbooks' is very interesting. A kindle textbook, where you could play with values and see the results... That's something I would like to see in highschools.