7 ms·

Accessible open textbooks in math-heavy disciplines

235 points by volemo 2y ago

nextos 2y ago
Richard Zach et al. logic textbooks are a work of art: https://slc.openlogicproject.org https://slc.openlogicproject.org. Aside, I'd be happy to pay for great classic math textbooks in a well typeset edition. Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces is one such example. The text is fantastic, but everything is too cramped and hard to read compared to a modern book from the 1970s onward. A newer edition typeset in LaTeX would be great.
- TimorousBestie 2y ago
  By my estimation, it’ll hit the public domain in 2053. Not that long of a wait, and in any case math typesetting should be much improved by then.
  - nextos 2y ago
    2053 is pretty far. I wish Dover, who hold publication rights, improved typesetting of this and a few other classic textbooks. It's probably not hard to use an LLM to do the bulk of the conversion to TeX work cheaply, and then some human input to polish the final document and fix errors.
    - graymatters 2y ago
      2053 is too far away indeed. “It’s probably not hard…” - how many such wishful thinking statements were uttered by humanity.
      - nextos 2y ago
        Have you tried image to LaTeX translation? It works fairly well already for text plus equations. I've done this for a 30-page manuscript with no sources, and I was able to recreate the entire document with minimal manual intervention to get a correct PDF. This is not programming, it's OCR and translation to a very simple markup language. It's a very easy mechanical task.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- JadeNB 2y ago
  There was a project a while ago to do exactly this (in general, not for Halmos's book specifically. I assume that's the one you mean). I can't find it by Googling, but here's an Internet Archive capture of a Project Gutenberg page that collected books for which this had been done: https://web.archive.org/web/20120502091427/https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Mathematics_(Bookshelf) https://web.archive.org/web/20120502091427/https://www.guten... .
whyho 2y ago
Typst( https://typst.app/ https://typst.app/) Is good Latex alternative which should be mentioned here. Their roadmap also features html as a target.
- zellyn 2y ago
  HTML is available as a preview feature now
- AugustinWinther 2y ago
  Switched from LaTeX to Typst two years ago and have never looked back. Looking forward to their HTML export feature. Looks like you can already play with it (though it's still "very incomplete") https://typst.app/docs/reference/html/ https://typst.app/docs/reference/html/
  - japanuspus 2y ago
    A friendly person on the internet already put up the typst-to-mathml part of this [0]. I have been considering the ultimate yak-shave of building a static site generator around this... [0]: https://github.com/wcshds/typst-math-to-mathml-converter https://github.com/wcshds/typst-math-to-mathml-converter
- teleforce 2y ago
  Another is TeXmacs [1]. "Despite its name, TeXmacs is not a front-end to TeX or LaTeX.[mHowever, TeXmacs documents can be converted to either TeX or LaTeX. LaTeX also can be imported (to some extent), and both import from and export to HTML, Scheme, Verbatim, and XML is provided; the HTML export is stylable with CSS (since version 1.99.14). There is a converter for MathML as well, and TeXmacs can output PDF and PostScript for printing." [2] GNU TeXmacs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_TeXmacs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_TeXmacs
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    Yeah they really need to rebrand.
pjmlp 2y ago
It is only kind of true, PDF does everything that HTML does, with print quality, naturally one needs Adobe proper for the full feature set, as most readers only implement the standard partially, for various reasons.
- xworld21 2y ago
  The accessibility and reflowability of HTML content, not to mention the ability to customize color schemes, fonts, line spacing, and similar are not possible with PDF, even using Adobe software. Even using the latest PDF 2.0 standard, you are ultimately expected to convert it to HTML if you need all that flexibility (such as via https://ngpdf.com/ https://ngpdf.com/).
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    I feel we are splitting airs here, and there is the whole FOSS versus Adobe thingie, https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/reading-pdfs-reflow-accessibility-features.html https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/reading-pdfs-reflow-ac...
    - xworld21 2y ago
      I posted this in another thread > Even the official Adobe's example of reflowing you posted before is quite bad: > https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/acrobat/using/reading-pdfs-reflow-accessibility-features.html#reflow_a_pdf https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/acrobat/using/reading-pdfs-reflow... > The reflowed PDF is just stacking all text and removing all non-text visual cues. For example, pairs of name/role are separated by whitespace in the PDF, but after reflowing they are undisguishable from each other (who would be the senior VP, Sunny or Daniel?). In HTML, reflowing would preserve semantically relevant whitespace out of the box.
- Finnucane 2y ago
  Getting PDF up to WCAG standards is a painful and arduous task.
kepano 2y ago
Another LaTeX to MathML option that I have had a good experience with is temml — it works in the browser or server side with Node.js. https://temml.org/ https://temml.org/
lutusp 2y ago
At my age I find this issue annoyingly predictable -- it suggests replacing LaTeX with something more modern and/or flexible. But that was the original idea behind LaTeX -- to replace what preceded it, create a portable comunication medium for mathematical expressions. Not to discourage experimentation, but I would like to see some behavoral reserve and healthy skepticism before adding another layer to the mathematical expression enterprise. There's also this issue to consider: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ .
- xworld21 2y ago
  I agree, and the article talks about working with LaTeX and converting directly to HTML. This is more about replacing the final PDF with HTML.
- eviks 2y ago
  But you're discouraging experimentation with nothing else but a reference to a silly comic
  - lutusp 2y ago
    The annoying comic would be silly if it weren't true. The point of the comic is the fact it alludes to, which by magnitude transcends any specific reference.
    - eviks 2y ago
      Except it's not true, it ignores the most important factor - market share. If the new 15th standards becomes the most/only used one (as has happened with many new standards), then the silly idea from the comic "the future is no better with just +1 in the pile" doesn't reflect reality, reality would be that indeed that new universal standard solved the problem and reduced the ridiculous fragmentation. That's why there is nothing healthy behind this thought-terminating comic cliche, just a generic conservative discouragement of any experiments.
- dreghgh 2y ago
  What LaTeX replaced was: a) typing the text of math papers and writing in the formulae by hand. b) word processing which was fixed width and line based, where there would be three characters for 'top of an integral sign', middle and bottom, and you would have to align your three characters at the same horizontal point on three successive lines to make the integral sign, and also position all subscripts, exponents yourself. The fact that LaTeX had an important mission and was successful in it doesn't mean that another thing is not needed now. Things have moved on. Replacing things which solved a problem doesn't mean going back to the situation before they existed.
oh_my_goodness 2y ago
Uh ... where is it written that LaTeX can only provide pdf output? Turn that around. Thought experiment. Say we work like pigdogs for 5 years and we completely replace all of Latex except the part that produces pdf. What value have we provided to users at that point?
- xworld21 2y ago
  The article talks about converting LaTeX to HTML, which is feasible today, if only buggy and fragile. This is the textbook the author talks about, which is written in LaTeX (but compiled with LaTeXML instead of pdflatex): https://forallx.openlogicproject.org/html/ https://forallx.openlogicproject.org/html/
  - oh_my_goodness 2y ago
    It does. But why can't LaTex produce png or something? Why does it have to be either pdf or pretty much abandon the idea of typesetting? Or am I misunderstanding?
    - goosedragons 2y ago
      You can. Compile to DVI then use dvipng. There's not much reason to do it anymore. PDFs take up less space, you can copy the text, do hyperlinks.
      - oh_my_goodness 2y ago
        So what's so bad about pdfs?
        CJefferson 2y ago
        Some people like text which they can reformat easily (increase font size, change to different screens dimensions). What is generally bad about the PDFs that Latex produces (and is a problem with latex, not a problem with PDF) is that they are very inaccessible, they don't work with screen readers. The reason it's so hard to make latex output HTML (although people are working on it) is that latex is actually a programming language, which is executed to decide where things go on in the PDF. Make latex output HTML is a bit like trying to take (say) a game engine like Unity, and change it's rendering engine to output HTML instead of graphics -- in the worst case it's basically impossible, as the game just generates commands like "draw triangle here", without context or semantics.
troymc 2y ago
My current favorite option is Quarto [1]. It's basically a friendly wrapper around Pandoc [2], letting you write in Markdown (+ lots of Quarto-specific extensions) and render to LaTeX, Typst, multi-page HTML, EPUB, docx, and more. [1] https://quarto.org/ https://quarto.org/ [2] https://pandoc.org/ https://pandoc.org/
- scottyeager 2y ago
  It's mentioned in the article.
miki123211 2y ago
> Switch the language on foreign terms and names so that screen readers can pronounce them in the right voice. Screen reader user here. Don't actually do this, this is bad advice. Just like a lecturer won't suddenly switch to a German accent when saying words like "schadenfreude" or names like "Friedrich Nietzsche", neither should a screen reader. Having your voice constantly change under you for no apparent reason is distracting more than anything else. What you should do this for are longer pieces of text in a foreign language, like a multi-paragraph piece of text to analyze in a foreign language textbook.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- TrayKnots 2y ago
  Yea, I hate that. Words are pronounced differently in foreign languages. Do we say Moscow or Moskwa? Do we say ka-tana or ka-ta-na? If Freud is not spoken with the typical Gemran diphthong, then suddenly someone comes along and corrects you. I do speak German, I know how Freud is pronounced and I will pronounce it as it should be pronounced when speaking German, but when speaking English, it is Frood for me. So, I am with you. We shouldn't learn the pronunciation of 200 different languages. If Kirchhoff's laws sound like Captain Kirk, who the fuck cares. Different languages pronounce stuff differently.
  - currymj 2y ago
    i agree with you in spirit (I pronounce Paris as Paris). however I have never heard of someone pronouncing Freud as Frood, outside of "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sobc2WhL16c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sobc2WhL16c
    - TrayKnots 2y ago
      Fair enough. Video doesn't play, but I believe you. I don't know where I heard froodian slip and frood, but I checked a few places where they pronounce it and all agree with you. Bet I will find more example as soon as enough time has passed so it would be weird to post it here. Damn you, Murphy.
westurner 2y ago
"BookML: automated LaTeX to bookdown-style HTML and SCORM, powered by LaTeXML" https://vlmantova.github.io/bookml/ https://vlmantova.github.io/bookml/ LaTeXML: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeXML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeXML : LaTeXML emits XML from a parsing of LaTex with Perl. SCORM is a standard for educational content in ZIP packages which is supported by Moodle, ILIAS, Sakai, Canvas, and a number of other LMS Learning Management Systems. SCORM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharable_Content_Object_Reference_Model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharable_Content_Object_Refere... xAPI (aka Experience API, aka TinCan API) is a successor spec to SCORM for event messages to LRS Learning Record Stores. Like SCORM, xAPI was granted by ADL. re: xAPI, schema.org/Action, and JSON-LD: https://github.com/RusticiSoftware/TinCanSchema/issues/7 https://github.com/RusticiSoftware/TinCanSchema/issues/7 schema.org/Action describes potential actions: https://schema.org/docs/actions.html https://schema.org/docs/actions.html For example, from the Schema.org "Potential Actions" doc: https://schema.org/docs/actions.html https://schema.org/docs/actions.html : { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Movie", "name": "Footloose", "potentialAction": { "@type": "WatchAction" } } That could be a syllabus. ActionTypes include: BuyAction, AssessAction > ReviewAction, Schema.org > "Full schema hierarchy" > [Open hierarchy] > Action and rdfs:subClassOf subclasses thereof: https://schema.org/docs/full.html https://schema.org/docs/full.html What Linked Data should [math textbook] publishing software include when generating HTML for the web? https://schema.org/CreativeWork https://schema.org/CreativeWork > Book, Audiobook, Article > ScholarlyArticle, Guide, HowTo, Blog, MathSolver The schema.org Thing > CreativeWork LearningResource RDFS class has the :assesses, :competencyRequired, :educationalLevel, :educationalAlignment, and :teaches RDFS properties; https://schema.org/LearningResource https://schema.org/LearningResource You can add bibliographic metadata and curricular Linked Data to [OER LearningResource] HTML with schema.org classes and properties as JSON-LD, RDFa, or Microdata. The schema.org/about property has a domain which includes CreativeWork and a range which includes Thing, so a :CreativeWork is :about a :Thing which could be a subclass of :CreativeWork. . I work with MathJax and LaTeX in notebooks a bit, and have generated LaTeX and then PDF with Sphinx and texlive like the ReadTheDocs docker container which already has the multiple necessary GB of LaTeX installed to render a README.rst as PDF without pandoc: The Jupyter Book docs now describe how that works. Jupyter Book docs > Customize LaTeX via Sphinx: https://jupyterbook.org/en/stable/advanced/pdf.html#customize-latex-via-sphinx https://jupyterbook.org/en/stable/advanced/pdf.html#customiz... How to build the docs with the readthedocs docker image onesself: https://github.com/jupyter-book/jupyter-book/issues/991 https://github.com/jupyter-book/jupyter-book/issues/991 ReadTheDocs > Dev > Design > Build Images > Time required to install languages at build time [with different package managers with varying performance] https://docs.readthedocs.com/dev/latest/design/build-images.html#time-required-to-install-languages-at-build-time https://docs.readthedocs.com/dev/latest/design/build-images.... The jupyter-docker-stacks, binderhub, and condaforge/miniforge3 images build with micromamba now IIRC. condaforge/miniforge3: https://hub.docker.com/r/condaforge/miniforge3 https://hub.docker.com/r/condaforge/miniforge3 Recently, I've gotten into .devcontainers/devcontainers.json; which allows use of one's own Dockerfile or a preexisting docker image and installs LSP and vscode on top, and then runs the onCreateCommand, postStartCommand A number of tools support devcontainer.json: https://containers.dev/supporting https://containers.dev/supporting Devcontainers could be useful for open textbooks in math-heavy disciplines; so that others can work within, rebuild, and upgrade the same container env used to build the textbook. Re: MathJax, LaTeX, and notebooks: To left-align a LaTeX expression in a (Jupyter,Colab,VScode,) notebook wrap the expression with single dollar signs. To center-align a LaTeX expression in a notebook, wrap it with double dollar signs: $ \alpha_{\beta_1} $ $$ \alpha_{\beta_2} $$ Textbooks, though? Interactive is what they want. How can we make textbooks interactive? It used to be that textbooks were to be copied down from; copy by hand from the textbook. To engage and entertain this generation. ManimCE, scriptable 3d simulators with test assertions, Thebelab, Jupyter Book docs > "Launch into interactive computing interfaces" > BinderHub ( https://mybinder.org https://mybinder.org ), JupyterHub, Colab, Deepnote: https://jupyterbook.org/en/stable/interactive/launchbuttons.html https://jupyterbook.org/en/stable/interactive/launchbuttons.... JupyterLite-xeus builds a jupyterlite static site from an environment.yml; such that e.g. the xeus-python kernel and other packages are compiled to WebAssembly (WASM) so that you can run Jupyter notebooks in a browser without a server: repo2jupyterlite works like repo2docker, which powers BinderHub, which generates a container with a current version of Jupyter installed after building the container according to one or more software dependency requirement specification files in /.binder or the root of the repo. repo2jupyter: https://github.com/jupyterlite/repo2jupyterlite https://github.com/jupyterlite/repo2jupyterlite jupyterlite-xeus: https://jupyterlite-xeus.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://jupyterlite-xeus.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
somethingsome 2y ago
I think the neatest feature would be: the mathematician states the theorem in English (edit: with math symbols as needed), then he states the proof in English. A post-Processor transform the proof into lean (with any official lib loaded). It is automatically verified. If something is missing, the post processor ask to write in English the missing parts. Iterate like this. The lean proof is hidden in the final document, and can be displayed if needed. Or even, we get an English version that can be easily retransformed into lean at will. Bonus point: we can query the document to give more details on part of the proof and it outputs (expanded) lean formatted as nice English. Note: there is no need to have all the math self contained in the document, he can say to assume some theorem true to do his proof. And this would be reflected in English.
- volemo 2y ago
  I can’t speak for true mathematicians, but as a (mostly theoretical) physicist I would hate to write my maths in plain English. Notation is used precisely because it’s easier, more efficient (to write and to read) to use it instead of prose. If you’d like an example, I suggest reading texts on solving quadratic equations that predate modern algebraic notation.
  - somethingsome 2y ago
    Sorry I meant English with maths inside, not to avoid all symbols! (A classical style proof that you find in any current paper) Edited.
nicf 2y ago
For the articles on my website, I have a pretty janky workflow where I write a LaTeX document that I compile both to a PDF and (using Pandoc) to HTML, which I render with KaTeX. I've been in the market for a while for something that's less fragile but which can still produce both a PDF and visually appealing HTML output starting from a LaTeX source, and it seems like some of the ideas listed here might be what I want! Thanks for the link. (That said, if anyone has a particular recommendation, I'd love to hear it!)
- ohgr 2y ago
  I’m lazy. I just extract the abstract from the tex source and put a link to the PDF. That is however quite different and not public in my case. Turns out from a technical documentation consumer perspective it’s easier to save a PDF than feck around with web pages and try and save them.
nprateem 2y ago
Why do maths textbooks never explain how to read the equations? I've tried reading a few and before you know it there'll be some matrix stuff in, integrations or whatever and no explanation of how to read them in normal English like a maths teacher does. They all seem to assume you're still at school rather than it being decades since you last had to read them. Even using Greek symbols - WRITE THEM OUT. Jeez, it's so elitist.
- volemo 2y ago
  Try reading physics books that introduce the maths as an instrument (e.g. Wald’s General relativity to learn tensor calculus, you only need the first few chapters), they usually explain concepts and notation in simpler terms. However, they may hide stuff under the rug of “it’s a tradition”, “we do this, don’t ask questions”, “ margin is too narrow to contain the proof”, etc. P.S.: Greek alphabet is not that bad (it’s only 24 letters, and a third of them isn’t used on behalf of being the same as some Latin ones), just look it up. It’s much worse when some mathematician in the 19th century invents his own squiggly to refer to a pretty useful function.
- tekla 2y ago
  If you don't know how to read them, you aren't ready to understand them. The writers expect you to have a base level of knowledge.
snitzr 2y ago
Accessibility is win-win because it helps more people access information and also has content creators thinking clearly about the quality of code and presentation.
wosined 2y ago
> The obligatory TeXmacs mention.
throwaway81523 2y ago
I feel like there are enough free and semi-free textbooks to study just about anything I want. The limiting factor is my not so plentiful brainpower to actually learn new math stuff. There's no way I can possibly run out of textbooks.
curtisszmania 2y ago
[dead]

235 points by volemo 2y ago

Richard Zach et al. logic textbooks are a work of art: https://slc.openlogicproject.org https://slc.openlogicproject.org. Aside, I'd be happy to pay for great classic math textbooks in a well typeset edition. Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces is one such example. The text is fantastic, but everything is too cramped and hard to read compared to a modern book from the 1970s onward. A newer edition typeset in LaTeX would be great.

TimorousBestie 2y ago
By my estimation, it’ll hit the public domain in 2053. Not that long of a wait, and in any case math typesetting should be much improved by then.
- nextos 2y ago
  2053 is pretty far. I wish Dover, who hold publication rights, improved typesetting of this and a few other classic textbooks. It's probably not hard to use an LLM to do the bulk of the conversion to TeX work cheaply, and then some human input to polish the final document and fix errors.
  - graymatters 2y ago
    2053 is too far away indeed. “It’s probably not hard…” - how many such wishful thinking statements were uttered by humanity.
    - nextos 2y ago
      Have you tried image to LaTeX translation? It works fairly well already for text plus equations. I've done this for a 30-page manuscript with no sources, and I was able to recreate the entire document with minimal manual intervention to get a correct PDF. This is not programming, it's OCR and translation to a very simple markup language. It's a very easy mechanical task.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
JadeNB 2y ago
There was a project a while ago to do exactly this (in general, not for Halmos's book specifically. I assume that's the one you mean). I can't find it by Googling, but here's an Internet Archive capture of a Project Gutenberg page that collected books for which this had been done: https://web.archive.org/web/20120502091427/https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Mathematics_(Bookshelf) https://web.archive.org/web/20120502091427/https://www.guten... .

whyho 2y ago

Typst( https://typst.app/ https://typst.app/) Is good Latex alternative which should be mentioned here. Their roadmap also features html as a target.

zellyn 2y ago
HTML is available as a preview feature now
AugustinWinther 2y ago
Switched from LaTeX to Typst two years ago and have never looked back. Looking forward to their HTML export feature. Looks like you can already play with it (though it's still "very incomplete") https://typst.app/docs/reference/html/ https://typst.app/docs/reference/html/
- japanuspus 2y ago
  A friendly person on the internet already put up the typst-to-mathml part of this [0]. I have been considering the ultimate yak-shave of building a static site generator around this... [0]: https://github.com/wcshds/typst-math-to-mathml-converter https://github.com/wcshds/typst-math-to-mathml-converter
teleforce 2y ago
Another is TeXmacs [1]. "Despite its name, TeXmacs is not a front-end to TeX or LaTeX.[mHowever, TeXmacs documents can be converted to either TeX or LaTeX. LaTeX also can be imported (to some extent), and both import from and export to HTML, Scheme, Verbatim, and XML is provided; the HTML export is stylable with CSS (since version 1.99.14). There is a converter for MathML as well, and TeXmacs can output PDF and PostScript for printing." [2] GNU TeXmacs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_TeXmacs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_TeXmacs
- IshKebab 2y ago
  Yeah they really need to rebrand.

pjmlp 2y ago

It is only kind of true, PDF does everything that HTML does, with print quality, naturally one needs Adobe proper for the full feature set, as most readers only implement the standard partially, for various reasons.

xworld21 2y ago
The accessibility and reflowability of HTML content, not to mention the ability to customize color schemes, fonts, line spacing, and similar are not possible with PDF, even using Adobe software. Even using the latest PDF 2.0 standard, you are ultimately expected to convert it to HTML if you need all that flexibility (such as via https://ngpdf.com/ https://ngpdf.com/).
- pjmlp 2y ago
  I feel we are splitting airs here, and there is the whole FOSS versus Adobe thingie, https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/reading-pdfs-reflow-accessibility-features.html https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/reading-pdfs-reflow-ac...
  - xworld21 2y ago
    I posted this in another thread > Even the official Adobe's example of reflowing you posted before is quite bad: > https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/acrobat/using/reading-pdfs-reflow-accessibility-features.html#reflow_a_pdf https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/acrobat/using/reading-pdfs-reflow... > The reflowed PDF is just stacking all text and removing all non-text visual cues. For example, pairs of name/role are separated by whitespace in the PDF, but after reflowing they are undisguishable from each other (who would be the senior VP, Sunny or Daniel?). In HTML, reflowing would preserve semantically relevant whitespace out of the box.
Finnucane 2y ago
Getting PDF up to WCAG standards is a painful and arduous task.

kepano 2y ago

Another LaTeX to MathML option that I have had a good experience with is temml — it works in the browser or server side with Node.js. https://temml.org/ https://temml.org/

lutusp 2y ago

At my age I find this issue annoyingly predictable -- it suggests replacing LaTeX with something more modern and/or flexible. But that was the original idea behind LaTeX -- to replace what preceded it, create a portable comunication medium for mathematical expressions. Not to discourage experimentation, but I would like to see some behavoral reserve and healthy skepticism before adding another layer to the mathematical expression enterprise. There's also this issue to consider: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ .

xworld21 2y ago
I agree, and the article talks about working with LaTeX and converting directly to HTML. This is more about replacing the final PDF with HTML.
eviks 2y ago
But you're discouraging experimentation with nothing else but a reference to a silly comic
- lutusp 2y ago
  The annoying comic would be silly if it weren't true. The point of the comic is the fact it alludes to, which by magnitude transcends any specific reference.
  - eviks 2y ago
    Except it's not true, it ignores the most important factor - market share. If the new 15th standards becomes the most/only used one (as has happened with many new standards), then the silly idea from the comic "the future is no better with just +1 in the pile" doesn't reflect reality, reality would be that indeed that new universal standard solved the problem and reduced the ridiculous fragmentation. That's why there is nothing healthy behind this thought-terminating comic cliche, just a generic conservative discouragement of any experiments.
dreghgh 2y ago
What LaTeX replaced was: a) typing the text of math papers and writing in the formulae by hand. b) word processing which was fixed width and line based, where there would be three characters for 'top of an integral sign', middle and bottom, and you would have to align your three characters at the same horizontal point on three successive lines to make the integral sign, and also position all subscripts, exponents yourself. The fact that LaTeX had an important mission and was successful in it doesn't mean that another thing is not needed now. Things have moved on. Replacing things which solved a problem doesn't mean going back to the situation before they existed.

oh_my_goodness 2y ago

Uh ... where is it written that LaTeX can only provide pdf output? Turn that around. Thought experiment. Say we work like pigdogs for 5 years and we completely replace all of Latex except the part that produces pdf. What value have we provided to users at that point?

xworld21 2y ago
The article talks about converting LaTeX to HTML, which is feasible today, if only buggy and fragile. This is the textbook the author talks about, which is written in LaTeX (but compiled with LaTeXML instead of pdflatex): https://forallx.openlogicproject.org/html/ https://forallx.openlogicproject.org/html/
- oh_my_goodness 2y ago
  It does. But why can't LaTex produce png or something? Why does it have to be either pdf or pretty much abandon the idea of typesetting? Or am I misunderstanding?
  - goosedragons 2y ago
    You can. Compile to DVI then use dvipng. There's not much reason to do it anymore. PDFs take up less space, you can copy the text, do hyperlinks.
    - oh_my_goodness 2y ago
      So what's so bad about pdfs?
      - CJefferson 2y ago
        Some people like text which they can reformat easily (increase font size, change to different screens dimensions). What is generally bad about the PDFs that Latex produces (and is a problem with latex, not a problem with PDF) is that they are very inaccessible, they don't work with screen readers. The reason it's so hard to make latex output HTML (although people are working on it) is that latex is actually a programming language, which is executed to decide where things go on in the PDF. Make latex output HTML is a bit like trying to take (say) a game engine like Unity, and change it's rendering engine to output HTML instead of graphics -- in the worst case it's basically impossible, as the game just generates commands like "draw triangle here", without context or semantics.

troymc 2y ago

My current favorite option is Quarto [1]. It's basically a friendly wrapper around Pandoc [2], letting you write in Markdown (+ lots of Quarto-specific extensions) and render to LaTeX, Typst, multi-page HTML, EPUB, docx, and more. [1] https://quarto.org/ https://quarto.org/ [2] https://pandoc.org/ https://pandoc.org/

scottyeager 2y ago
It's mentioned in the article.

miki123211 2y ago

> Switch the language on foreign terms and names so that screen readers can pronounce them in the right voice. Screen reader user here. Don't actually do this, this is bad advice. Just like a lecturer won't suddenly switch to a German accent when saying words like "schadenfreude" or names like "Friedrich Nietzsche", neither should a screen reader. Having your voice constantly change under you for no apparent reason is distracting more than anything else. What you should do this for are longer pieces of text in a foreign language, like a multi-paragraph piece of text to analyze in a foreign language textbook.

deleted 2y ago
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TrayKnots 2y ago
Yea, I hate that. Words are pronounced differently in foreign languages. Do we say Moscow or Moskwa? Do we say ka-tana or ka-ta-na? If Freud is not spoken with the typical Gemran diphthong, then suddenly someone comes along and corrects you. I do speak German, I know how Freud is pronounced and I will pronounce it as it should be pronounced when speaking German, but when speaking English, it is Frood for me. So, I am with you. We shouldn't learn the pronunciation of 200 different languages. If Kirchhoff's laws sound like Captain Kirk, who the fuck cares. Different languages pronounce stuff differently.
- currymj 2y ago
  i agree with you in spirit (I pronounce Paris as Paris). however I have never heard of someone pronouncing Freud as Frood, outside of "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sobc2WhL16c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sobc2WhL16c
  - TrayKnots 2y ago
    Fair enough. Video doesn't play, but I believe you. I don't know where I heard froodian slip and frood, but I checked a few places where they pronounce it and all agree with you. Bet I will find more example as soon as enough time has passed so it would be weird to post it here. Damn you, Murphy.

westurner 2y ago

"BookML: automated LaTeX to bookdown-style HTML and SCORM, powered by LaTeXML" https://vlmantova.github.io/bookml/ https://vlmantova.github.io/bookml/ LaTeXML: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeXML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeXML : LaTeXML emits XML from a parsing of LaTex with Perl. SCORM is a standard for educational content in ZIP packages which is supported by Moodle, ILIAS, Sakai, Canvas, and a number of other LMS Learning Management Systems. SCORM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharable_Content_Object_Reference_Model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharable_Content_Object_Refere... xAPI (aka Experience API, aka TinCan API) is a successor spec to SCORM for event messages to LRS Learning Record Stores. Like SCORM, xAPI was granted by ADL. re: xAPI, schema.org/Action, and JSON-LD: https://github.com/RusticiSoftware/TinCanSchema/issues/7 https://github.com/RusticiSoftware/TinCanSchema/issues/7 schema.org/Action describes potential actions: https://schema.org/docs/actions.html https://schema.org/docs/actions.html For example, from the Schema.org "Potential Actions" doc: https://schema.org/docs/actions.html https://schema.org/docs/actions.html : { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Movie", "name": "Footloose", "potentialAction": { "@type": "WatchAction" } } That could be a syllabus. ActionTypes include: BuyAction, AssessAction > ReviewAction, Schema.org > "Full schema hierarchy" > [Open hierarchy] > Action and rdfs:subClassOf subclasses thereof: https://schema.org/docs/full.html https://schema.org/docs/full.html What Linked Data should [math textbook] publishing software include when generating HTML for the web? https://schema.org/CreativeWork https://schema.org/CreativeWork > Book, Audiobook, Article > ScholarlyArticle, Guide, HowTo, Blog, MathSolver The schema.org Thing > CreativeWork LearningResource RDFS class has the :assesses, :competencyRequired, :educationalLevel, :educationalAlignment, and :teaches RDFS properties; https://schema.org/LearningResource https://schema.org/LearningResource You can add bibliographic metadata and curricular Linked Data to [OER LearningResource] HTML with schema.org classes and properties as JSON-LD, RDFa, or Microdata. The schema.org/about property has a domain which includes CreativeWork and a range which includes Thing, so a :CreativeWork is :about a :Thing which could be a subclass of :CreativeWork. . I work with MathJax and LaTeX in notebooks a bit, and have generated LaTeX and then PDF with Sphinx and texlive like the ReadTheDocs docker container which already has the multiple necessary GB of LaTeX installed to render a README.rst as PDF without pandoc: The Jupyter Book docs now describe how that works. Jupyter Book docs > Customize LaTeX via Sphinx: https://jupyterbook.org/en/stable/advanced/pdf.html#customize-latex-via-sphinx https://jupyterbook.org/en/stable/advanced/pdf.html#customiz... How to build the docs with the readthedocs docker image onesself: https://github.com/jupyter-book/jupyter-book/issues/991 https://github.com/jupyter-book/jupyter-book/issues/991 ReadTheDocs > Dev > Design > Build Images > Time required to install languages at build time [with different package managers with varying performance] https://docs.readthedocs.com/dev/latest/design/build-images.html#time-required-to-install-languages-at-build-time https://docs.readthedocs.com/dev/latest/design/build-images.... The jupyter-docker-stacks, binderhub, and condaforge/miniforge3 images build with micromamba now IIRC. condaforge/miniforge3: https://hub.docker.com/r/condaforge/miniforge3 https://hub.docker.com/r/condaforge/miniforge3 Recently, I've gotten into .devcontainers/devcontainers.json; which allows use of one's own Dockerfile or a preexisting docker image and installs LSP and vscode on top, and then runs the onCreateCommand, postStartCommand A number of tools support devcontainer.json: https://containers.dev/supporting https://containers.dev/supporting Devcontainers could be useful for open textbooks in math-heavy disciplines; so that others can work within, rebuild, and upgrade the same container env used to build the textbook. Re: MathJax, LaTeX, and notebooks: To left-align a LaTeX expression in a (Jupyter,Colab,VScode,) notebook wrap the expression with single dollar signs. To center-align a LaTeX expression in a notebook, wrap it with double dollar signs: $ \alpha_{\beta_1} $ $$ \alpha_{\beta_2} $$ Textbooks, though? Interactive is what they want. How can we make textbooks interactive? It used to be that textbooks were to be copied down from; copy by hand from the textbook. To engage and entertain this generation. ManimCE, scriptable 3d simulators with test assertions, Thebelab, Jupyter Book docs > "Launch into interactive computing interfaces" > BinderHub ( https://mybinder.org https://mybinder.org ), JupyterHub, Colab, Deepnote: https://jupyterbook.org/en/stable/interactive/launchbuttons.html https://jupyterbook.org/en/stable/interactive/launchbuttons.... JupyterLite-xeus builds a jupyterlite static site from an environment.yml; such that e.g. the xeus-python kernel and other packages are compiled to WebAssembly (WASM) so that you can run Jupyter notebooks in a browser without a server: repo2jupyterlite works like repo2docker, which powers BinderHub, which generates a container with a current version of Jupyter installed after building the container according to one or more software dependency requirement specification files in /.binder or the root of the repo. repo2jupyter: https://github.com/jupyterlite/repo2jupyterlite https://github.com/jupyterlite/repo2jupyterlite jupyterlite-xeus: https://jupyterlite-xeus.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://jupyterlite-xeus.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

somethingsome 2y ago

I think the neatest feature would be: the mathematician states the theorem in English (edit: with math symbols as needed), then he states the proof in English. A post-Processor transform the proof into lean (with any official lib loaded). It is automatically verified. If something is missing, the post processor ask to write in English the missing parts. Iterate like this. The lean proof is hidden in the final document, and can be displayed if needed. Or even, we get an English version that can be easily retransformed into lean at will. Bonus point: we can query the document to give more details on part of the proof and it outputs (expanded) lean formatted as nice English. Note: there is no need to have all the math self contained in the document, he can say to assume some theorem true to do his proof. And this would be reflected in English.

volemo 2y ago
I can’t speak for true mathematicians, but as a (mostly theoretical) physicist I would hate to write my maths in plain English. Notation is used precisely because it’s easier, more efficient (to write and to read) to use it instead of prose. If you’d like an example, I suggest reading texts on solving quadratic equations that predate modern algebraic notation.
- somethingsome 2y ago
  Sorry I meant English with maths inside, not to avoid all symbols! (A classical style proof that you find in any current paper) Edited.

nicf 2y ago

For the articles on my website, I have a pretty janky workflow where I write a LaTeX document that I compile both to a PDF and (using Pandoc) to HTML, which I render with KaTeX. I've been in the market for a while for something that's less fragile but which can still produce both a PDF and visually appealing HTML output starting from a LaTeX source, and it seems like some of the ideas listed here might be what I want! Thanks for the link. (That said, if anyone has a particular recommendation, I'd love to hear it!)

ohgr 2y ago
I’m lazy. I just extract the abstract from the tex source and put a link to the PDF. That is however quite different and not public in my case. Turns out from a technical documentation consumer perspective it’s easier to save a PDF than feck around with web pages and try and save them.

nprateem 2y ago

Why do maths textbooks never explain how to read the equations? I've tried reading a few and before you know it there'll be some matrix stuff in, integrations or whatever and no explanation of how to read them in normal English like a maths teacher does. They all seem to assume you're still at school rather than it being decades since you last had to read them. Even using Greek symbols - WRITE THEM OUT. Jeez, it's so elitist.

volemo 2y ago
Try reading physics books that introduce the maths as an instrument (e.g. Wald’s General relativity to learn tensor calculus, you only need the first few chapters), they usually explain concepts and notation in simpler terms. However, they may hide stuff under the rug of “it’s a tradition”, “we do this, don’t ask questions”, “ margin is too narrow to contain the proof”, etc. P.S.: Greek alphabet is not that bad (it’s only 24 letters, and a third of them isn’t used on behalf of being the same as some Latin ones), just look it up. It’s much worse when some mathematician in the 19th century invents his own squiggly to refer to a pretty useful function.
tekla 2y ago
If you don't know how to read them, you aren't ready to understand them. The writers expect you to have a base level of knowledge.

snitzr 2y ago

Accessibility is win-win because it helps more people access information and also has content creators thinking clearly about the quality of code and presentation.

wosined 2y ago

> The obligatory TeXmacs mention.

throwaway81523 2y ago

I feel like there are enough free and semi-free textbooks to study just about anything I want. The limiting factor is my not so plentiful brainpower to actually learn new math stuff. There's no way I can possibly run out of textbooks.

curtisszmania 2y ago

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