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Re: Semantical writing (was: logical markup)



>
>>   The idea is to sort out the names into different boxes, or modules, so
>> that they do not conflict. By the scheme, one can classify glyph renderings
>> and symbol semantics independently, and then link them together as an
>> independent step.
>>
>It is very clear that one can construct a macro layer over the actual
>font encodings to enable semantic tagging (I always thought most people
>would write their math in that way - at least I do).
>
Just like document markup should always be logical, good markup
of formulas should be semantic.
But since the semantics depends on the context provided by the author
it cannot be (completely) predetermined by font designers
or package writers.

The author should choose his symbols from the choice provided by
the fonts and the style and make semantic assignments by himself,
at the beginning of the document
(except, of course, some basic, generally agreed assignments).

>My question was strictly on the font encoding issue wether a new math
>font encoding standard should force font designers (always in the hope
>that there will be people designing new math fonts in the future)
>to design one glyph which is suitable as \setminus *and* as \backslash
>or if they should have the freedom to design different glyphs for the
>two different concepts.
>
Take, for example \setminus and \backslash:
  In many cases it will not matter which glyph (if there are two) is
taken (and will therefore be a matter of layout style or personal
preference), but in some context, the difference might be important,
and another author might prefer a \minus instead of \setminus.
Therefore it would be better to describe symbols by there visual
differences than by some intended meaning (e.g. \shortbackslash?).

Peter

>But I think it is clear that there will always be an element of compromise
>since there are infinitely many mathematical concepts which have to be
>mapped onto finitely many available glyphs.
>
>Matthias


Peter Schmitt                             a8131dal@awiuni11.edvz.univie.ac.at
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Institute of Mathematics                                     Strudlhofgasse 4
University of Vienna                                              A-1090 Wien
                                                                      Austria