Re: History of the math syntax

[John MacFarlane <jgm-TVLZxgkOlNX2fBVCVOL8/A@public.gmane.org>]

Albert Krewinkel <albert+pandoc-9EawChwDxG8hFhg+JK9F0w@public.gmane.org> writes:
> GitHub recently introduced support for the `$`/`$$` Markdown math
> syntax: <https://github.blog/2022-05-19-math-support-in-markdown/>
>
> This made me wonder when and how this TeX syntax made its way into
> Markdown. I tried to dig through the history of old projects like pandoc
> and MultiMarkdown, but didn't get very far. All I could find is that
> pandoc has been supporting TeX math syntax for at least 15 years.
>
> Maybe someone here can satisfy my curiosity?

Math support is in pandoc 0.1 (I checked the source code).  That was 2006.

Looking in the old markdown-discuss list, I see a message from
Rob Shearer in September 2007 that sums up the current state of
play for math in markdown:

> - [MultiMarkdown][] has some mathematics support based on [asciimath] 
> [] notation using double-angle-brackets as delimiters:  
> `<<...asciimath...>>`. I'm afraid I can't find any asciimath  
> documentation that tells me how to do set notations in that format...
> - Python-markdown's [mdx_math][] extension seems to use latex  
> notation with HTML-style tags, like `<math>\{ x \mid x^2 \in S \}</ 
> math>`. This use of tags strikes me as quite un-Markdownish.
> - [Pandoc][] handles LaTeX math between dollar signs (which is  
> standard LaTeX notation): `$\{ x \mid x^2 \in S \}$`.

So I think pandoc did originate the syntax GitHub is now using,
about 16 years ago.