Jan Hidders wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
And are they going to know that if we tell them that $$ invokes LaTeX? They'll know if we tell them to put $$ around variable names.
People don't read manuals, they first look in other articles how it is done there.
One of the first pages that I looked at was [[Wikipedia:How does one edit a page]]. I didn't edit any pages seriously until reading that. Not everybody is like this, but some people are. Now, if I hadn't known TeX already, I wouldn't have been heartened to see a reference to it. What do you propose to write there?
.. let $$v<sub>1</sub>$$, ..., $$v<sub>n</sub>$$ be a finite list ..
There are many versions of "my notation" around, but this is none of them.
This is how the mark-up you suggested could be used. Perhaps it is not how you would like it to be used, but it's still your notatation. But whether you want people to write $$x$$<sub>$$n$$</sub> or $$x<sub>n</sub>$$ is not really to the point anyway.
The point is that you keep criticising "my notation", but you don't seem to have any idea what that is. If the notation above had been suggested by a third party, I would have argued against it.
.. let <var>v</var><sub>1</sub>, ..., <var>v</var><sub><var>n</var></sub> be a finite list ..
This is what I write now, and the HTML that we should produce.
Says who? I don't agree, even apart from the question whether we should support <var> at all (<var> was not included in HTML to write mathematical variables), but since it is not relevant for this discussion I'm going to save that for later.
I didn't think that that was a controversial statement anymore; the only controversy being if the distinction was important enough. If you argue that <i> is truly correct and <var> is not, then this has an effect on *my* outlook on the matter, at least.
We can't say "Put [$ and $] around a math expression to call LaTeX.", because it isn't that difficult, and people won't want to try it.
I assume "difficult" -> "simple"? For simple math you only need to know what [$ x_n $] does and maybe not even that if you don't use subscripts.
That's why I say that it's *not* that difficult. You don't have to know very much to do this, as you just pointed out, yet the direction that I wrote makes it seem as if you do. If I didn't know LaTeX already, I'd question whether or not I want to get involved in a project that seems to demand that I know it (assuming that I want to edit math articles, which I do).
Do you want to write up all of the LaTeX that we use?
No, I don't intend to do that all by myself. :-) The request for LaTeX is an old one and has been made several times. I know several people who write mathematics in Wikipedia who cannot wait to get their hands on this. There's no doubt that it will be used.
You don't have to convince me that it would be useful, and used. I'm one of the people that has voiced support for the idea, and I'm one of the people that would certainly use it, given the opportunity. I'm just having trouble seeing how it can be implementd in a user friendly way.
-- Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia-l@math.ucr.edu
On Sat, Aug 10, 2002 at 12:01:20AM -0700, Toby Bartels wrote:
One of the first pages that I looked at was [[Wikipedia:How does one edit a page]]. I didn't edit any pages seriously until reading that. Not everybody is like this, but some people are. Now, if I hadn't known TeX already, I wouldn't have been heartened to see a reference to it. What do you propose to write there?
That mathematical variables are preferrably enclosed in [$ and $] and that if you want to use sub- and superscript in them you can write [$x_n$] and [$c^2$].
Apart from that there would be another section containing more explanation for writing complex math with [$ .. $] and [$$ .. $$]. This would probably be the same as what you would write for [[math: ..]]. We cannot get around mentioning LaTeX somewhere.
The point is that you keep criticising "my notation", but you don't seem to have any idea what that is. If the notation above had been suggested by a third party, I would have argued against it.
Please, Toby, I get the impression you are taking this a bit too personally. I'm not criticizing your notation per se, I'm criticizing the idea of having two separate markups for variables and more complex math expressions, as opposed to just one for math expressions. Wheter you want to allow only $$x$$<sub>$$y$$</sub> or also $$x<sub>y</sub>$$ is not really relevant for that question; the arguments stay the same.
.. let <var>v</var><sub>1</sub>, ..., <var>v</var><sub><var>n</var></sub> be a finite list ..
This is what I write now, and the HTML that we should produce.
Says who? I don't agree, even apart from the question whether we should support <var> at all (<var> was not included in HTML to write mathematical variables), but since it is not relevant for this discussion I'm going to save that for later.
I didn't think that that was a controversial statement anymore; the only controversy being if the distinction was important enough.
I don't remember any discussion about, assuming that we should use <var>, how <var> should be used with variables with subscripts. But again, IMO this is all besides the point so I'll be happy to discuss this with you in another discussion when I have some more time. Right now I'd like to limit this dicussion to the question at hand.
-- Jan Hidders
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