[c0g]

Specifically for writing math heavy papers (what I use LaTeX for) HTML offers:

1. (kinda.. if I want to use Google's font API and the browser renders it well)

2. Not a single file.

3. Not cross-platform - it will render differently on my linux desktop and mac laptop.

4. I don't know how to convert all of my LaTeX macros and workflows to HTML so I'd need something like htmltex (doesn't exist, I want it).

5. MathJax is good, but it ain't great. Too many compromises.

6. No typesetting and words per lining heuristics like LaTeX - again, need htmltex.

7. and 8. were a bit unclear, sorry. I mean in writing mathematical papers. HTML has a huge community but signal to noise for writing readable papers is pretty high. Mapping what I do in LaTeX to HTML requires many more lines of code.

[mbq]

There is htmltex (i.e. almost full stack emitting HTML), it is called latexml. There is also a lot converters, most notably Pandoc.

Still I 100% agree that even HTML is too primitive and too inconsistently implemented for scientific writing.

[c0g]

Thanks for the pointer, I shall play with latexml!