3 ms·

you know what we need even less than another json alternative? another math-language alternative. more so than any other formal(ish) language, a representation

you know what we need even less than another json alternative? another math-language alternative. more so than any other formal(ish) language, a representation (for math) benefits from network effects (because math is both older and broader than any/every other such language).

runarberg 2y ago
This is for authoring math expressions which compiles to MathML. MathML has the explicit design goal of being hard to write, and is much more meant to be a compiler target rather than for humans to write. This space is pretty dominated by LaTeX whom almost all professionals use, but is pretty verbose and not exactly easy to use for beginners (or even non-frequent users). Other than LaTeX we have Office Math, which is a GUI, and AsciiMath. This tool is a dialect of AsciiMath[1] and builds on top of that. If you know AsciiMath, you know this. There is also UnicodeMathML[2], but that has another goal than this or AsciiMath, where the focus is on readability of authored expressions, rather than writability here. 1: https://asciimath.org/ https://asciimath.org/ 2: https://github.com/doersino/UnicodeMathML https://github.com/doersino/UnicodeMathML
- zamadatix 2y ago
  Casual users probably just want the GUI options with less care of what syntax that may eventually involve on the backend. People deep enough to care about writing everything in raw syntax probably want to stick with LaTeX and can have a program transform that to MathML or SVG whatever else they need for display. The "here's a special syntax which is neither all of A or B" is just a hard sell. On specific tools I've also liked https://www.imatheq.com/imatheq/com/imatheq/math-equation-editor.html https://www.imatheq.com/imatheq/com/imatheq/math-equation-ed... for quick casual use since it's just a webpage but still a decent GUI editor.
  - almostgotcaught 2y ago
    offline the best tool for this is LyX https://www.lyx.org/ https://www.lyx.org/
  - seec 2y ago
    I agree. Since it's all about writing math for presentation and not inputting math for calculation, having to learn a supplementary markup language to learn makes no sense. There is no way you get back the time invested in any meaningful way, unless you write math books for a leaving, I guess. Some sort of keyboard only markup language for inputting complexe math calculation seem like something worthwhile at first glance. But then you realize that you still need some specialized keyboard keys (and/or macro) if you really want to have completely "inline" (single line). But at the end you get something that's extremely unreadable and you find out that what's actually needed is computing software that both has a way to write and compute math as we used to on paper. The 3D aspect is extremely important for comprehension/readability, the only time it makes sense to lay out the equation in some sort of inline markup is for rendering when it's part of a larger document compilation process. And plenty of people use Microsoft Word or some other sort of GUI to avoid even doing this... Also, you realize that nowadays, pen tablets are extremely cheap and pen input is very simple, so what is really needed is the same type of software that exists on tablets to convert math pen input into formalized markup representation that the computer can understand (no need for the end user to see the underlying mechanics). And voilà, you can have math input without wasting too much time with a markup language.
    - runarberg 2y ago
      I think the real power comes when you have both a GUI and an initiative (though not always correct) keyboard input methods. Point and click can be slow, and if you are taking notes while attending a lecture, you probably don’t want to waste your valuable focus looking for the correct icon to write the thing, you just want to type `||a||^2` and hope it does the right thing (and if it doesn’t your temporary markup is obvious enough that you can return to it later).
- Diti 2y ago
  > MathML has the explicit design goal of being hard to write Wait, really? Do you have good primary sources to back up that claim?
  - runarberg 2y ago
    I worded this badly. I probably should have said that human authoring was not a concern while designing the language. MDN has a specific page for authoring MathML[1] where they suggest you probably don’t want to write them by hand and suggest you should use tools that generate MathML instead. This is really no different from SVG. The design of the SVG markup language did not take considerations of people writing SVG images by hand, instead they designed the language to be a handy compiler target. Which it is, you can draw nice SVG images from a GUI like inkscape as well as nice graphs from a javascript library like d3. 1: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/MathML/Guides/Authoring https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/MathML/Guides/A...
- lenkite 2y ago
  What do you think of Typst https://typst.app/ https://typst.app/ ? They are planning a web target as well.
  - runarberg 2y ago
    It is the first I heard about, but at first glance I like it. It looks like another AsciiMath dialect (just like mathup). But unlike mathup, and like AsciiMath, it seems tightly integrated into its parent environment. If they would release their math authoring as a standalone tool where it would compile to MathML it would be a serious competitor here. What I like about the typist math dialect is that they seem to go even further than me away from AsciiMath. I was a bit conservative in trying to follow AsciiMath (at least in the beginning). EDTI: A link to typst math module - https://github.com/typst/typst/blob/main/crates/typst-library/src/math/mod.rs https://github.com/typst/typst/blob/main/crates/typst-librar...
    - teleforce 2y ago
      What do you think about TexMacs since it has converters for TeX/LaTeX and HTML/MathML? p/s: It has nothing to do with Tex or Emacs, just a poor naming combination. [1] Welcome to GNU TeXmacs: https://www.texmacs.org/tmweb/home/welcome.en.html https://www.texmacs.org/tmweb/home/welcome.en.html
      - runarberg 2y ago
        I’m not exactly sure that I have an opinion about it. It seems like a nice tool and I bet it’s users really like it. Inputting math equations seem to be done primarily with the GUI interface, which is probably a fine way of doing it. My personal experience with math via GUI is trying it in office Math and it was fine, I quickly learned TeX personally and have preferred it over GUI input for most of my adult life, so I don’t really have an opinion about particular GUI tools, other than I’m glad they exist and that people can use them.

runarberg 2y ago

This is for authoring math expressions which compiles to MathML. MathML has the explicit design goal of being hard to write, and is much more meant to be a compiler target rather than for humans to write. This space is pretty dominated by LaTeX whom almost all professionals use, but is pretty verbose and not exactly easy to use for beginners (or even non-frequent users). Other than LaTeX we have Office Math, which is a GUI, and AsciiMath. This tool is a dialect of AsciiMath[1] and builds on top of that. If you know AsciiMath, you know this. There is also UnicodeMathML[2], but that has another goal than this or AsciiMath, where the focus is on readability of authored expressions, rather than writability here. 1: https://asciimath.org/ https://asciimath.org/ 2: https://github.com/doersino/UnicodeMathML https://github.com/doersino/UnicodeMathML

zamadatix 2y ago
Casual users probably just want the GUI options with less care of what syntax that may eventually involve on the backend. People deep enough to care about writing everything in raw syntax probably want to stick with LaTeX and can have a program transform that to MathML or SVG whatever else they need for display. The "here's a special syntax which is neither all of A or B" is just a hard sell. On specific tools I've also liked https://www.imatheq.com/imatheq/com/imatheq/math-equation-editor.html https://www.imatheq.com/imatheq/com/imatheq/math-equation-ed... for quick casual use since it's just a webpage but still a decent GUI editor.
- almostgotcaught 2y ago
  offline the best tool for this is LyX https://www.lyx.org/ https://www.lyx.org/
- seec 2y ago
  I agree. Since it's all about writing math for presentation and not inputting math for calculation, having to learn a supplementary markup language to learn makes no sense. There is no way you get back the time invested in any meaningful way, unless you write math books for a leaving, I guess. Some sort of keyboard only markup language for inputting complexe math calculation seem like something worthwhile at first glance. But then you realize that you still need some specialized keyboard keys (and/or macro) if you really want to have completely "inline" (single line). But at the end you get something that's extremely unreadable and you find out that what's actually needed is computing software that both has a way to write and compute math as we used to on paper. The 3D aspect is extremely important for comprehension/readability, the only time it makes sense to lay out the equation in some sort of inline markup is for rendering when it's part of a larger document compilation process. And plenty of people use Microsoft Word or some other sort of GUI to avoid even doing this... Also, you realize that nowadays, pen tablets are extremely cheap and pen input is very simple, so what is really needed is the same type of software that exists on tablets to convert math pen input into formalized markup representation that the computer can understand (no need for the end user to see the underlying mechanics). And voilà, you can have math input without wasting too much time with a markup language.
  - runarberg 2y ago
    I think the real power comes when you have both a GUI and an initiative (though not always correct) keyboard input methods. Point and click can be slow, and if you are taking notes while attending a lecture, you probably don’t want to waste your valuable focus looking for the correct icon to write the thing, you just want to type `||a||^2` and hope it does the right thing (and if it doesn’t your temporary markup is obvious enough that you can return to it later).
Diti 2y ago
> MathML has the explicit design goal of being hard to write Wait, really? Do you have good primary sources to back up that claim?
- runarberg 2y ago
  I worded this badly. I probably should have said that human authoring was not a concern while designing the language. MDN has a specific page for authoring MathML[1] where they suggest you probably don’t want to write them by hand and suggest you should use tools that generate MathML instead. This is really no different from SVG. The design of the SVG markup language did not take considerations of people writing SVG images by hand, instead they designed the language to be a handy compiler target. Which it is, you can draw nice SVG images from a GUI like inkscape as well as nice graphs from a javascript library like d3. 1: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/MathML/Guides/Authoring https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/MathML/Guides/A...
lenkite 2y ago
What do you think of Typst https://typst.app/ https://typst.app/ ? They are planning a web target as well.
- runarberg 2y ago
  It is the first I heard about, but at first glance I like it. It looks like another AsciiMath dialect (just like mathup). But unlike mathup, and like AsciiMath, it seems tightly integrated into its parent environment. If they would release their math authoring as a standalone tool where it would compile to MathML it would be a serious competitor here. What I like about the typist math dialect is that they seem to go even further than me away from AsciiMath. I was a bit conservative in trying to follow AsciiMath (at least in the beginning). EDTI: A link to typst math module - https://github.com/typst/typst/blob/main/crates/typst-library/src/math/mod.rs https://github.com/typst/typst/blob/main/crates/typst-librar...
  - teleforce 2y ago
    What do you think about TexMacs since it has converters for TeX/LaTeX and HTML/MathML? p/s: It has nothing to do with Tex or Emacs, just a poor naming combination. [1] Welcome to GNU TeXmacs: https://www.texmacs.org/tmweb/home/welcome.en.html https://www.texmacs.org/tmweb/home/welcome.en.html
    - runarberg 2y ago
      I’m not exactly sure that I have an opinion about it. It seems like a nice tool and I bet it’s users really like it. Inputting math equations seem to be done primarily with the GUI interface, which is probably a fine way of doing it. My personal experience with math via GUI is trying it in office Math and it was fine, I quickly learned TeX personally and have preferred it over GUI input for most of my adult life, so I don’t really have an opinion about particular GUI tools, other than I’m glad they exist and that people can use them.