Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
texvc is done, testing found no bugs. Please install it on all production Wikipedias.
*Please* don't.
texvc is full of problems; here are the two primary ones:
1: A simple equation like <math>x + y = z</math> looks ugly (uglier than ordinary wiki markup with or witout italics) under any user preference -- and simply wrong under the default.
This is primarily because Tomasz has neglected to implement TeX's spacing algorithm in the HTML version of the texvc rendering. Sure, he could now go and programme it. But why bother when Don Knuth already did? Which brings us to primary problem 2:
2: The entire philosophy of texvc is wrong from start to finish.
I intended to write an essay on texvc and how it *should* work on MetaWikipedia -- where such an essay belongs -- once I got back online (today or later in the weekend), although I didn't know (until reading my email just now) that I would have this impending deadline to delay its implementation. I'll try to get it done today (not just sometime this weekend).
In the meantime, I think that installing texvc wouldn't simply fail to solve our math formatting problems but would actually make things worse. Math formatting isn't a pressing issue, but in the end we will certainly want it. We should do it right. texvc is not right. And it's so much off from right, in fact, that it will be harder to make things right later if people start using it now. (Details in my essay.)
-- Toby