The point is why do we need something specific for math. Would people be OK with a musicml? Or say chemicalml? And that's a good question. Why is math so special? Let's try to solve the problem more generically instead of adding specialized domains in the browser.
I'd also add that there is a W3C Math WG, and has been for over a decade. I would have thought the question of whether or not MathML is desirable would have been answered at some point in that time frame before it became a W3C Recommendation.
[1] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mozilla.dev.platform/9...
to quote one rebuttal of every point the thread op made:
1.1. you make a point against adding unnecessary typography. Mathematics is text, but adding new requirements. It's comparable to the introduction of RTL or tables much more than musical notation. It's also something that all school children will encounter for 9-12 years. IMHO, this makes it necessary to implement mathematical typesetting functionality.
1.2 you claimed MathML is inferior to TeX. I've tried to point out that that's not the case as most scientific and educational publishers use it extensively.
1.2.1 you claimed TeX is the universal standard. I've tried to point out only research mathematicians use it as a standard. Almost most mathematics happens outside that group.
1.2.2 You pointed out that MathML isn't friendly to manual input. That's true but HTML isn't very friendly either, nor is SVG.
1.2.3 You argued TeX is superior for accessibility. I've pointed out that that's not the case given the current technology landscape.
2 You wrote now is the time to drop MathML. I've tried to point out that now -- as web and ebook standard -- is the time to support it, especially when your implementation is almost complete and you're looking to carve a niche out of the mobile and mobile OS market, ebooks etc.
2.1 you claim MathML never saw traction outside of Firefox. I tried to point out that MathML has huge traction in publishing and the educational sector, even if it wasn't visible on the web until MathJax came along. Google wants MathML support (they just don't trust the current code) while Apple has happily advertised with the MathML they got for free. Microsoft indeed remains a mystery.
2.2 you claim MathJax does a great job -- ok, I'm not going to argue ;) -- while browsers don't. But we've used native output on Firefox before MathJax 2.0 and plan to do it again soon -- it is well implemented and can provide the same quality of typesetting.
3. Well, I'm not sure what to say to those. If math is a basic typographical need, then the syntax doesn't matter -- we need to see it implemented and its bottom up layout process clashes with CSS's top down process. No change in syntax will resolve that.
You seem not to have been around when we had to do it over plain text. It sucked. MathML is a huge gain for sharing thoughts over scientific matters. Of course, they aren't as important to today's "open web" compared to, say, ads and making text rumble with JS, but they shouldn't be relegated to an entirely unimportant position, especially considered they're part of the famous HTML5 standard that should supposedly deliver us from the dreaded fractures between platforms.
Asked at Hackernews?
Really?
Of course, Chrome could implement whatever it likes if it drops any claim to be standards compliant, but until that happens...
The impression I got was that they would never implement it.
Considering that the roots of the WWW are in a scientific research organization (CERN)[1], and considering how much scientific users use maths, then yeah, I'd say it makes sense that maths should be a native part of the WWW platform.