[whatwg] Mathematics in HTML5

[Alexey Feldgendler]

On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 19:20:28 +0700, White Lynx <whitelynx at operamail.com>  
wrote:

>>>> How should "formula" be used? There has been some discussion about it.

>>> In case when everything is reduced to fractions and simple indices,
>>> it can be optional. But having such an element is still important for
>>> those who want to mark formulae explictly.

>> Then why include it now? It can be added later.

> And what to do until then?
> Use <em>ax<sup>2</sup> + bx + c = 0</em>
> or
> <span class="math">ax<sup>2</sup> + bx + c = 0</span>
> how to mark math formula? Don't tell us to use microformats.

Ok, I've looked through some archived mail in this list, and I'm convinced  
that we need <formula>.

>> At least it wouldn't be a no-op element (that is, an element which  
>> doesn't
>> change the appearance of the document unless specially styled).

> In the same manner you can remove html and head, they are no-op elements.
>
> formula element is important from structural point of view.

If I was reinventing HTML from scratch now, I would drop HEAD and BODY and  
leave just the HTML element. But we have backward compatibility preventing  
us from doing this, of course. And, just like I said, a lot of pages  
misuse HEAD and BODY just because omitting them or messing them up doesn't  
break the page display.


-- 
Alexey Feldgendler <alexey at feldgendler.ru>
[ICQ: 115226275] http://feldgendler.livejournal.com