[TriLUG] Fwd: Re: [docbook-apps] db for math/chem dissertation/thesis

[Ed Hill]

On Thu, 2003-08-28 at 16:22, Mike Mueller wrote:
> Here's a response from Bob Stayton on the docbook-apps list.  Bob is one the 
> most knowledgeable people on the list.  He is the author of the sagehill 
> reference I linked in a previous message.
> 
> Looks like SGML/XML is an uphill climb for some advanced tasks.  Looks like 
> an area ready for some pioneering work. WYSIWYG in acedemia is a chilling 
> thought.  Acedemia beholden to Redmond. B-r-r-r!  OpenOffice is OK I guess if 
> it's XML in source form. LaTeX is venerable but is not browser oriented 
> (IIRC). Gotta get beyond this paper thing.
> 
> Academia's  requirements are similar to those of the legal trade (this is not 
> meant to demean the honest trades: plumbing, carpentry, software hacking) in 
> that documents need to be single sourced, multi-media published, and 
> enduring.  The legals are picking up on XML it seems.  It seems that the 
> academicians should head in the same direction.  We all require openness, of 
> course.
> 
> Well, there you have it.  A complete opinion of academic publishing from a 
> distinctly non-academic PoV.  Hopefully the research is useful.


Hi Mike,

Thanks for posting that!

I'd *love* to see an XML or SGML solution that produces good quality
text, math, and image output for both

  1) PDF (for print) and
  2) "the web".

The second does not have to be HTML, it just has to be some form of XML
(or similar) that can be displayed on IE and at least one Open Source
browser.  Mozilla would be fine.

The solution that we (and a lot of other academics) are currently using
is LaTeX2HTML (plus we have a bunch of custom PERL to further cleanup
and "wrap" the HTML).  You can see some examples of stuff that I'm
working on at:

  http://mitgcm.org/dev_docs/
  http://mitgcm.org/dev_docs/online_documents/node1.html
  http://mitgcm.org/dev_docs/online_documents/node18.html

We're also using DocBook (with stylesheets from tldp.org) for some of
the non-mathematical documentation and its nice.  

Unfortunately, I seems that Open Source XML- and SGML-based tools are a
long way from producing decent mathematical markup for both PDFs and
"the web".  Perhaps that'll change in the coming years?

Ed

ps - Isn't it just *amazing* how long Knuth's TeX package has 
  lasted?  Its what -- 20+ years? -- later and nothing (either 
  Open Source or commercial) seems capable of producing better-
  quality mathematical markup.  Will we have to wait for Knuth's 
  reincarnation in order to get a better replacement?  ;-)


-- 
Edward H. Hill III, PhD
office:  MIT Dept. of EAPS;  Room 54-1424;  77 Massachusetts Ave.
            Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
email:   eh3 at mit.edu,  ed at eh3.com
URL:     http://web.mit.edu/eh3/
phone:   617-253-0098
fax:     617-253-4464
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://www.trilug.org/pipermail/trilug/attachments/20030828/2dd8801f/attachment.pgp>