[NTG-context] upload

[Hans Hagen <j.hagen@xs4all.nl>]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2350 bytes --]

Hi,

There is a new lmtx upload.

-- The svg inclusion via metapost has been upgraded and cleanup a bit, 
using some more recent metapost features. There are some new (not yet 
all documented metapost) features.

-- In the process, support for LCH colors has been added, which is 
documented in the (eg luametafun manual).

-- The math manual is not yet there because we were distracted by 
improving support for envelopes (penbased outlines) in metafun. This is 
still work in progress, some is present and discussed in the manual, and 
we'll come back to that sometime next month. Given the next item, we 
also might need to change some in the manual (different focus).

-- Because we have users who have to conform to the European 
Accessibility Act we have been wondering how to deal with that and at 
Mikaels place there are two demands: distinctive colors and tagging and 
especially math (somehow validators love to check that). Colors never 
were an issue as they can be controlled, and tagging math neither, 
especially because nothing was/is done with it anyway, but ... we are 
happy that we found a reasonable (more modern and future proof) way out.

As explained / shown in the attached document we're basically forced to 
choose a different approach with math (a pity as we worked hard to get 
the rendering right but the attached file works fine in the viewers that 
we tested).

-- We like to hear from users what other demands wrt accessibility there 
are. We're not interested in the (commercial) big money aspects (of pdf 
and tagging) nor in the politics behind it (changes over time). What are 
the demands, so that we can see how to make it work or just work around 
it (as it's kind of boring to cook uyp complex features	, esp compared 
to playing with metapost).

-- Furthermore .. the usual bits and pieces as discussed on the list and 
otherwise.

-- If you have troubles (crash) you need to wipe the cache due to a 
change in lua bytecode storage (no easy way to catch it).

Hans & Mikael

-----------------------------------------------------------------
                                           Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
               Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
        tel: 038 477 53 69 | www.pragma-ade.nl | www.pragma-pod.nl
-----------------------------------------------------------------

[-- Attachment #2: math-riddance.pdf --]
[-- Type: application/pdf, Size: 35614 bytes --]

[-- Attachment #3: math-riddance.tex --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 3139 bytes --]

% language=us

% todo: no comma

\usemodule[scite]
\usemodule[article-basic]
\usemodule[abbreviations-logos]
\usemodule[math-goodriddance]

\setuplayout[tight]

\starttext

\subject{Good riddance}

We're done with math. After years of active development, Mikael and Hans have
decided to quit working on math, and concentrate on \METAPOST\ and handing over
to the next generation instead. We lost our user to the way more popular
alternative (frozen in stone standards). Also, we had it with suboptimal math
fonts, Unicode math not getting improved, MathML constantly being changed,
browsers dealing with math differently every few years, math archives getting
polluted with tons of useless tagged math.

There are other motivations, like the European union imposing strict rules with
respect to accessibility in educational content management systems, and Dutch
schools trying to get rid of math in favor of simple calculus, if at all. This is
why the next iteration of the engine will no longer have a math engine:
MathLessTeX. Of course, in the beginning \MLTX\ will be compatible with \LMTX,
because we owe that to the users and we need to prototype the new engine anyway.

In order to get an idea of how we will get rid of the disturbing formulas, you
can load the module:

\starttyping
\usemodule[math-goodriddance]
\stoptyping

Until becoming the default setting, the command \typ {\goodriddancemath} will
bring you into \MLTX\ mode while \typ {\badriddancemath} will bring you back to
the obsolete \LMTX\ mode. Like:

\startbuffer
\usemodule[math-goodriddance] \goodriddancemath

Who wants to solve the equation \m {x + 1 = 4} or deal with the function \m {x \mapsto
\root [3] {x}}, when we have AI around the corner to help us out with simple and silly
things like the Pythagorean theorem: \m {a^2 + b^2 = c^2}, or even with more advanced
math like geometric series: \m {\sum_{k = 0}^{+\infty} x^k = 1/(1 - x)}?

We will not support complicated nonsense stuff like:

\startplaceformula
\startformula
    F__{1}____{2}(a,b;b;z) = (1 - z)^{-a}
\stopformula
\stopplaceformula

When developing this Hans' Swedish improved a lot. {\language[sv] Den lilla del av
befolkningen som handlar på IKEA och tittar på fåniga krimserier förstår kanske detta:
\im {\sqrt {x + 1} = \sin(4 + y)}!}
\stopbuffer

\typebuffer[option=TEX]

Which gives us the beautifully typeset:

\startcolor[darkblue] \getbuffer \stopcolor

We hope that the highly respected Swedish Academy will consider our prose in
their upcoming evaluations. Our first submission to the leading \TEX\ journal was
however rejected. We are currently on a major revision in order to satisfy the
hopefully less critical \NTG\ Maps Editors. It is therefore our sincere hope that
you will be able to read more on this topic in the near future. Currently only
English and Swedish are supported. But our next research project, lead by two
young promising linguists, will hopefully result in support for more languages.
They will present preliminary results at the prestigious international BachoTeX
conference in May 2024.

\stoptext

[-- Attachment #4: Type: text/plain, Size: 511 bytes --]

___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / https://mailman.ntg.nl/mailman3/lists/ntg-context.ntg.nl
webpage  : https://www.pragma-ade.nl / https://context.aanhet.net (mirror)
archive  : https://github.com/contextgarden/context
wiki     : https://wiki.contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________