[christopherolah]

This came up on the sage (FOSS alternative to Mathematica and freinds) mailing lists and I thought I'd post it here.

It always surprises me how difficult math on the Internet has turned out to be. Hopefully this can help...

[hyperbovine]

MathML was supposed to be the answer, and we all know how that went. Just goes to show how over the top people were going with XML in the late 1990s. I mean,

  <math mode="display" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
  <mrow>
    <mi>x</mi>
    <mo>=</mo>
    <mfrac>
      <mrow>
        <mo form="prefix">&#x2212;<!-- &minus; --></mo>
        <mi>b</mi>
        <mo>&#x00B1;<!-- &PlusMinus; --></mo>
        <msqrt>
          <msup>
            <mi>b</mi>
            <mn>2</mn>
          </msup>
          <mo>&#x2212;<!-- &minus; --></mo>
          <mn>4</mn>
          <mo>&#x2062;<!-- &InvisibleTimes; --></mo>
          <mi>a</mi>
          <mo>&#x2062;<!-- &InvisibleTimes; --></mo>
          <mi>c</mi>
        </msqrt>
      </mrow>
      <mrow>
        <mn>2</mn>
        <mo>&#x2062;<!-- &InvisibleTimes; --></mo>
        <mi>a</mi>
      </mrow>
    </mfrac>
  </mrow>
  </math>

to typeset the fucking quadratic formula?

[PaulTopping]

MathML is not a human input language! MathML is a representation. While comparisons with TeX and LaTeX are inevitable, they serve different purposes. Look at the HTML/CSS used to render a dynamic menu sometime. I'm sure it is pretty ugly too.