Thread: why Latex?

Just out of curiosity, why did the admins go with Latex over Mathml or something else?

Originally Posted by superdude

Just out of curiosity, why did the admins go with Latex over Mathml or something else?

In one word: Ubiquity.

I looked up MathML just now, and I have to say, I would definitely not enjoy working with MathML source code. I can only imagine what continued fractions would look like...

Originally Posted by undefined

I looked up MathML just now, and I have to say, I would definitely not enjoy working with MathML source code. I can only imagine what continued fractions would look like...

Hahahaha, oh my God that language is hideous! Writing would take a decade!

Originally Posted by Drexel28

Hahahaha, oh my God that language is hideous! Writing would take a decade!

I concur with you, it actually writes the quadratic formula like this :

Code:

<math>
  <mrow>
    <mi>x</mi>
    <mo>=</mo>
    <mfrac>
      <mrow>
        <mrow>
          <mo>-</mo>
          <mi>b</mi>
        </mrow>
        <mo>&PlusMinus;</mo>
        <msqrt>
          <mrow>
            <msup>
              <mi>b</mi>
              <mn>2</mn>
            </msup>
            <mo>-</mo>
            <mrow>
              <mn>4</mn>
              <mo>&InvisibleTimes;</mo>
              <mi>a</mi>
              <mo>&InvisibleTimes;</mo>
              <mi>c</mi>
            </mrow>
          </mrow>
        </msqrt>
      </mrow>
      <mrow>
        <mn>2</mn>
        <mo>&InvisibleTimes;</mo>
        <mi>a</mi>
      </mrow>
    </mfrac>
  </mrow>
</math>

Compare this with LaTeX :

Code:

x = \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^4 - 4ac}}{2a}

It's even worse than standard ASCII notation :

Code:

x = (-b +- sqrt(b^2 - 4ac)) / 2a

Also, check out what the authors said about MathML :

While MathML is human-readable, it is anticipated that, in all but the simplest cases, authors will use equation editors, conversion programs, and other specialized software tools to generate MathML. Several early versions of such MathML tools already exist, and a number of others, both freely available software and commercial products, are under development.

Human-readable, what a joke !

Originally Posted by superdude

Just out of curiosity, why did the admins go with Latex over Mathml or something else?

It is also pretty much standard in the maths world. If you read a paper or a maths book, chances are it will be written in LaTeX.

Also, you have to appreciate anything which has an error message reading,

"Maybe you should try asking a human?"

I thought about it because MathML is backed by W3C.