Re: [math-fun] readability of math-fun posts
Can't we post simple formulae in the obvious single-line form, and more complicated ones in LaTeX? For instance, something as simple as Stirling's formula could be written assqrt(2 pi n)(n/e)^e, whereas more complicated expressions may be more readable just posted as LaTeX. I don't particularly like the use of white space to position things in a two-dimensional expression, since certain programs render text-only messages as monospaced, whilst others use Times New Roman or whatever. And there's no point drawing an actual Greek letter theta when you can just as easily type 'theta'. That's just deliberately making it awkward for people like Warren who probably still use Internet Explorer 2! Sincerely, Adam P. Goucher http://cp4space.wordpress.com
----- Original Message ----- From: Axel Vogt Sent: 01/19/13 08:53 PM To: math-fun@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [math-fun] readability of math-fun posts
Message: 4 Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2013 14:42:51 -0500 From: Warren Smith<warren.wds@gmail.com> To:math-fun@mailman.xmission.com Subject: [math-fun] readability of math-fun posts Message-ID: <CAAJP7Y1+=TqpHOuBbmdTdSVNoHFj83ZJNN882FeSRE6DifcXfw@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
--If you stick to plain ASCII character set, then you are safe. If you use anything else, then some people will have trouble reading it. Sure, we may be able to compensate if we try hard enough, but I think a post for a general, cross-platform audience, ought to be designed so Ignorant Joe Schmoe can read it. Another thing some posters enjoy doing is making a fairly long message which is all on one single line, say 1000 characters long. Again, some reader tools insert line breaks to make that readable. Others do not.
I am still too dumb to answer correctly (using Thunderbird as mailer) into a thread :-(
But it may be, that for example Bill Gosper (using Google Mail) may have some setting to provide html mail and/or encoding is not the prefered one (ISO-8859-1).
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* Adam P. Goucher <apgoucher@gmx.com> [Jan 20. 2013 09:12]:
[...] That's just deliberately making it awkward for people like Warren who probably still use Internet Explorer 2!
Who needs a browser anyway? telnet should be enough for everybody: copy & paste the following into your terminal telnet www.jjj.de 80 GET /index.html HTTP/1.1 Host: www.jjj.de (you will need to hit enter when apparently nothing happens). If HTML feels like decadence, try (seriously, do!): telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl (just sit back and enjoy... ASCII TV) Strings and cans, jj
[...]
I'm of roughly the same opinion as Adam, although I usually lean a bit more towards plain human-readable form, even though that means I have to explain in another sentence or two which of the various gamma's I meant by "Gamma" or "gamma". For anyone with doubts about LaTeX, I have found texify.com to be the easiest way to decrypt any LaTeX that I run across, and they don't seem to mind you copying the output bitmap images (unlike, say, Wolfram Alpha which seems to be trying as hard as possible to prevent that). On 1/19/13, Adam P. Goucher <apgoucher@gmx.com> wrote:
Can't we post simple formulae in the obvious single-line form, and more complicated ones in LaTeX? For instance, something as simple as Stirling's formula could be written assqrt(2 pi n)(n/e)^e, whereas more complicated expressions may be more readable just posted as LaTeX. I don't particularly like the use of white space to position things in a two-dimensional expression, since certain programs render text-only messages as monospaced, whilst others use Times New Roman or whatever.
And there's no point drawing an actual Greek letter theta when you can just as easily type 'theta'. That's just deliberately making it awkward for people like Warren who probably still use Internet Explorer 2!
-- Robert Munafo -- mrob.com Follow me at: gplus.to/mrob - fb.com/mrob27 - twitter.com/mrob_27 - mrob27.wordpress.com - youtube.com/user/mrob143 - rilybot.blogspot.com
participants (3)
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Robert Munafo