Re: DOCBOOK: docbook vs latex

[Ramon Casellas <casellas@infres.enst.fr>]

On Mon, 2 Sep 2002, Doug du Boulay wrote:
> Dear Ramon,

Hi Doug,

> Wouldnt it be possible to put in an RFE to try and
> get mathelement, maththeorem etc into DocBook?

Well, I think I did it a couple of years ago (there was no project at
sourceforge), and my petition was rejected, based on the fact that DocBook
should remain all-purpose.. I don't recall the arguments exactly.

Having used LaTeX for a while, I also liked subfigure, grouping figures in
terms of "simulation a" "simulation b" and "after/before", so I also
requested a <subfigure> element ... Finally, I thought that these were
*my* needs which may not suit everyone.


> I imagine its the lack of support for/demand by mathematics users that has
> allowed DocBook to progress so far without such elements.

I would like to see them added to DocBook (in fact, my last DocBook-like
doc. has plenty of theorems, equations and so on) but I am not sure if
that is the goal of DocBook.


> Or are they so incompatible?
Although I would like to see <maththeorem><mathproof> etc. added to
docbook, I consider thigs like <latex>\begin{equation}</latex> a temporary
hack. I do think that mathml is the way to go, and in this sense there is
a "very timid" approach in db2latex to render mathml using LaTeX.



> just a thought
Thanks



Ramon