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

[Ed Hill]

On Sat, 2003-09-06 at 15:27, Mike Mueller wrote:

> > 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
> 
> The examples are very nice.  I've done enough db to know that I was looking 
> at the result of a large effort. 
> 
> Is this the same or same-but-different as the toolset you describe above?
> 
> http://hutchinson.belmont.ma.us/tth/

Yes.  We're using LaTeX2HTML (as shipped within the tetex package in Red
Hat).  TTH is very similar but produces output optimized for download
speed.  I think LaTeX2HTML generates much better-looking math, but its a
judgment call.


> > 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?  ;-)
> 
> After looking at MathML and LaTeX, I conclude that LaTeX is the superior 
> mark-up language.  To be fair and balanced :-) 

Well, its perhaps not fair to say that one is a "better" markup language
than the other.  XML is a totally generic, general-purpose way of
encoding data.  Its meant for everything in general and nothing in
particular.

(La)TeX, on the other hand, is meant primarily (only?) as language for
typesetting.

I think theres no technical reason why XML can't be used to encode
everything that LaTeX encodes.  Its just that no Open Source folks seem
to have had the time (or inclination?) to write a set of XML tools that
do a better job of typesetting math than LaTeX currently does.  Perhaps
the OpenOffice folks will eventually create XML documents that rival
LaTeX in terms of math typesetting quality.  I'd love to see the Open
Source XML (or SGML) tools improve.


> http://xmlsucks.org/

Yeah, lots of good points are made there.  My other major disappointment
with XML has nothing to do with typesetting.  XML mostly sucks for
encoding numerical data.  I'm starting to use NetCDF:

  http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf/

as it has many of the "self-describing data" advantages of XML but works
for numerical data.

Ed

-- 
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
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