Re: sqrt

[Taco Hoekwater <taco.hoekwater@wkap.nl>]

>>>>> "TB" == Tobias Burnus <burnus@gmx.de> writes:

 TB> Hi Hans,
 >> I've been giving this \sqrt some thinking.
 >> 
 >> (1) I think \root ... \of ... is not that bad at all. It follows the
 >> flow of thinking.
 TB> It does. But {a \over b} does as well and we have also \fraction{a}{b}
 TB> defined in ConTeXt; moreover it is easier to remember \sqrt{x} and
 TB> \sqrt[3]{x} than
 TB> having \sqrt{x} and \root3\of x
agree.
 >> (2) \sqrt is a plain tex macro, which we cannot simply redefine.
 TB> Agreed.
agree.

 >> (3) Personally I always think of sqrt as being the root 2 of something,
 >> and therefore \sqrt[x]{} is (correct me if I'm wrong) a rather strange
 >> one.
 TB> {\root3\of{}} is but {\root3\of x} isn't that strange.
 TB> [I wrongly wrote \sqrt[n]{x} = \root x\of n in a privious mail, it's in
 TB> LaTeX of cause: \sqrt{x} = \sqrt{x} and \sqrt[n]{x} = {\root n\of x}

A short explanation, in reply to something Hans wrote earlier:

		Taco, is there really no way to determine the local math style? 

No. And that is principally caused by \over, which is why it has to go
away in a future version of NTS. For the sake of consistency, it makes
sense to remove the other infix notations (like \root \of) as well.

Consider this: 
		 $$ {a \over b} \over c$$

When TeX scans this (and expanding the macros along the way), it first
sees an $a$, in displaystyle. Next it sees $\over$, which switches the
$a$ to scriptstyle (at least). now it also finds and $b$ in
scriptstyle, closes the subform and moves on. Yet another \over!. So
*all* of the preceding material moves into scriptscriptstyle. This is 
why you can't get at the current math style: Knuth decided not to have
unreliable information available to the macro programmer.

 >> On the other hand, I like the idea of a more verbose syntax. Maybe Taco
 >> has some ideas on this, especially when we look at math ML and the
 >> possibility to map tex on MML vise vera.
 TB> Agreed. But we should also look at AMSTeX/AMSLaTeX, but I'm sure Taco
 TB> will do so anyway.

Of course.

Greetings, Taco

-- 
Taco Hoekwater                                 taco.hoekwater@wkap.nl
Kluwer Academic Publishers                            -- Pre Press --
Achterom 119, 3311 KB Dordrecht, The Netherlands  tel.  31-78-6392550
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