RE: [Axiom-developer] Re: hyperdoc

[Page, Bill]

On Monday, January 17, 2005 7:44 PM I wrote:

> ... 
> LaTeX on the other hand is an input format. It is intended to be
> directly coded by a human being. But doing this inevitably does
> require some significant training, just ask a Microsoft WORD user.
> (No, I don't mean to compare WORD and LaTeX, my point is only
> that ease of use can be quite subjective.)

A better comparison would be TeXmacs and LaTeX. TeXmacs is
intended to be easier to learn and (much) easier to read.

It is interesting to note that like OpenMath, TeXmacs can be
used as an common input language to computer algebra systems
just as it is now used to interpret the LaTeX output of Axiom
and many other systems. The internal coding of TeXmacs 
documents (in principle) includes enough semantics of the
mathematics to allow unambiguous conversion to the native input
language of a system like Axiom. E.g. what appears as in
integral sign on the screen in TeXmacs can generate the

  `integrate(...)'

command as input for Axiom. An extended program similar to
tm_axiom would be required. So far this ability has not been
exploited by very many TeXmacs add-ons.

Regards,
Bill Page.