Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: hyperdoc

[Bob McElrath]

Martin Rubey address@hidden wrote:
> Bob McElrath writes:
> 
>  > In the longer-term, do you actually want to run latex?  
> 
>  > The other way to go is to actually use latex (or tth) to process
>  > pamphlet files to html (or XHTML+MathML).  This route is slower (because
>  > latex is slow -- and tth is very slow), but more thorough in the case of
>  > obtuse latex usage.  Handling \def and \newcommand should be possible
>  > for simple cases, but not the more advanced latex programming.
> 
> I strongly *strongly* suggest that you take this route. I said this before and
> I'll say it once more: I suggest that there should be only few pagetypes
> available:

Of course, I will do both, and I recommend that mathaction restrict the
set of pagetypes available, discarding e.g. ReStructuredText, STX, etc.

Clearly full-up, true latex input is desired.  However this format
violates the idea of a Wiki.  In particular, it is not simple, nor fast,
nor unsurprising in its output.  How many times have you run latex,
tweaked your document, run latex again...just to make it look right?

> In fact, I don't quite understand why this should be difficult. Does speed
> matter that much? After all, the document will only be reprocessed after
> editing!

I am constantly frustrated by zwiki's speed...

> Again: Please don't do a fake LaTeX. Eventually it will fail, I'm absolutely
> certain!

A fake-but-fast latex that already exists is ttm:

    http://hutchinson.belmont.ma.us/tth/mml/

it fails on some rudimentary documents I tried.  But then, so did
tex4ht (the true-latex way).  In fact there are significant differences
between the output of tex4ht and regular latex generating a
postscript...

FYI, tex4ht is the set of latex packages for generating html:

    http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~gurari/TeX4ht/

It is the "right" way to do this, and what I will use, unless there
exists a better set of packages.

--
Cheers,
Bob McElrath [Univ. of California at Davis, Department of Physics]

    "Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks 
    without knowledge, of things without parallel." -- Ambrose Bierce

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