[vatsachak]

Why do we like HTML more than pdfs?

HTML rendering requires you to be connected to the internet, or setting up the images and mathJax locally. A PDF just works.

HTML obviously supports dynamic embedding, such as programs, much better but people just usually post a github.io page with the paper.

[devnull3]

> HTML rendering requires you to be connected to the internet

Not really. One can always generate a self-contained html. Both CSS and JS (if needed) can be inline.

[vatsachak]

True but the webdev idiom is injecting things such as mathjax from a cdn. I guess one can pre-render the page and save that, but that's kind of like a PDF already

[mmooss]

epub 'just works' locally, and it's html under the hood.

[nine_k]

Try opening a PDF on a phone screen.

[vatsachak]

I do it all the time to read papers. It's easy

[recursive]

Why would html rendering require a network connection? It doesn't seem to on my machine.

[vatsachak]

Things like LaTeX equation rendering are hosted on a cdn

[krapp]

They can be but don't need to be. Any javascript can be localized like HTML and CSS.

[vatsachak]

That's fair, but imagine trying to get the average reader up to speed with something like npm.

[krapp]

You don't actually need npm either. You can literally just distribute everything - html, css, images and js in a zipped folder and open it locally.