[whatwg] Mathematics in HTML5

[Ian Hickson]

On Sat, 17 Jun 2006, White Lynx wrote:
> 
> "Basic Web application features SHOULD BE IMPLEMENTABLE using behaviors, 
> scripting, and style sheets IN IE6 TODAY"

Given that <canvas> has been implemented in IE6, I have no worries that an 
HTML-based Math markup language based on MathML (and creating a MathML 
DOM) could be implemented in IE6 as well, if someone wanted to do so.


> "The core features of an XML vocabulary should require the use of 
> elements from ONLY ONE NAMESPACE."

The proposal was to not have namespaces at all (and indeed, not even use 
XML), so this seems co vered.


> "IT IS VERY IMPORTANT that authors BE ABLE TO MOVE FROM AN HTML 
> ENVIRONMENT TO A CLEAN COMPOUND DOCUMENT ENVIRONMENT (typically first 
> simply by moving to XHTML) IN A GRADUAL FASHION."

This was written when my opinion was still that we should be moving to 
XHTML. I'm not actually sure we want to do that at all these days; most 
Web developers seem to agree (there's almost no XHTML on the Web).

However, integrating MathML into text/html would make this imminently 
possible, since it would allow one to write a text/html-to-XML converter 
that actually took HTML5 markup with Maths, and turned it into native 
XHTML with MathML, etc.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'