Re: [docbook] mathphrase

[Michael Smith <smith at xml-doc dot org>]

Neil Soiffer <NeilAS@DesSci.com> writes:

> Michael,
> 
> Thanks for the response.  I did see the referenced original proposal, but
> that proposal lacks an explanation of what problem the proposal is trying to
> solve.  Also, the Jägermeister release simplified the referenced proposal,
> again with minimal explanation of why "mathphrase" is needed.  See technical
> committee meeting minutes:
> http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-tc/200502/msg00008.html
> 
> I'm sure the committee had a good reason to introduce this tag.  I'd like to
> understand it and understand how the tag interacts with other standards that
> include math, how it affects accessibility, and how it affects other issues
> that MathML was designed to solve.

I think the genesis for it was a discussion about the fact that
sometimes people want to mark up "simple" equations -- such as
"E=mc^2" -- as just plain text, or text with some inline markup
(for example, superscript and subscript). But the problem was that
the existing content model for equation and inlineequation did not
permit them to contain text. So users had to resort to ad-hoc
markup like this:

  <phrase role="math">E=mc<superscript>2</superscript></phrase>

So I think the rationale was that rather than having people
resort to using ad-hoc markup, we'd be better off having a
standard way to mark up such instances -- a way that would
indicate what they really are (equations); for example:

  <inlineequation><mathphrase
    >E=mc<superscript>2</superscript></mathprase></inlinequation>

--Mike

> >From: Michael Smith <smith@xml-doc.org>
> >To: Neil Soiffer <NeilAS@DesSci.com>
> >Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 12:57:10 +0900
> >
> >
> >
> >The original proposal for mathphrase is here:
> >
> >  http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-tc/200502/msg00003.html
> >
> >Neil Soiffer <NeilAS@DesSci.com> writes:
> >
> >> The J132germeister release added a "mathphrase" tag.  I couldn't find 
> >> any
> >> discussion on this other than an indirect mention that it was for simple
> >> equations.  As a member of the MathML IG, I'm interesting in finding out
> >> what problems of MathML this tag is intended to solve.  I am a little
> >> concerned about some of the problems using "mathphrase" introduces.
> >>
> >> Neil Soiffer
> >> Senior Scientist                 phone: 562-433-0685
> >> Design Science, Inc.             http://www.dessci.com
> >> "How Science Communicates"
> >> MathType, WebEQ, MathPlayer, Equation Editor, TeXaide
> >

-- 
Michael Smith
http://logopoeia.com/  http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/890

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