[Blindmath] mathplayer, jaws, and math in graphics?

[Andrew Stacey]

I was sorely tempted just to ignore this.  I fear that I may regret not doing
so.  Ah well, as the _real_ good doctor would no doubt agree, clarity is the
most important feature in communication so if I have been misunderstood, then
the fault is partially mine.

On Sun, Apr 03, 2011 at 09:41:45PM +0100, PR Stanley wrote:
> The good doctor here has obviously imbibed the myth of the one-eyed
> man in the country of the blind. For the second time he's
> patronising us with his bilge about LaTeX being too complicated to
> learn and that we like good blind people ought to listen to our
> betters and buy the MathML con wholesale.

I did not say that LaTeX was too complicated to learn.  I do not have my exact
words in front of me, but one thing I said was along the lines of "If you want
to write mathematics, learn LaTeX.".  I said that LaTeX **can** be complicated
to read, and that the intention behind LaTeX (and TeX) was **not** that it be
read for comprehension.  Just as you would not look at the source code of
firefox to read a webpage, so you would not look at the source code of a LaTeX
document to learn the mathematics included in it.

> If he is so concerned about accessibility and he believes that
> complicated LaTeX isn't easily decipherable by us blind folks, then
> why would he deliberately go out of his way to use obfuscated code
> in his articles? In any case, what makes him think that a blind
> person couldn't learn to hack complicated LaTeX?

The two "questions" there are completely different and underline the point
that I was trying to make.  I do use incredibly complicated macros in my
documents, I freely admit it.  But my source code is not meant to be read by
anyone other than myself.  I do not use macros deliberately to make my code
difficult to read, indeed I cannot envision the situation wherein someone
would want to read the source of one of my articles.  I use complicated macros
because it makes my life easier when I am writing the articles.  It is much
easier for me to write something like:

Let \(\dobj\) be an \dobj and let \(\dmor \colon \dobj \to \forfunc(\eobj)\)
be a morphism.

than to write

Let \(D\) be an object of \(\mathcal{D}\) and let \(d \colon D \to
\mathfrac{F}(E)\) be a morphism.

because if I decide that I want to change how I do certain things in my
document then I only need to change one thing at the beginning in the first
scheme whereas I need to change every occurrence in the second.

I "hack" LaTeX because it makes my life easier when writing mathematics.
I imagine that a blind person would be able to learn to hack LaTeX just as
easily as they would to program in another language.  But "hacking", unless
I am misunderstanding something, is about **writing**, not reading.  And
whilst I know what \expandafter means, and know the distinction between \gdef,
\xdef, \def, and \edef, I still would rather read the finished document than
the source code used to produce it.


> "If I came across a web site that presented its mathematics as raw
> LaTeX code then I would not use that web site.  I would consider it
> second rate, and not a serious mathematical web site.  If I think
> like that, why should you think otherwise?"
> 
> Because most of us are interested in information

Exactly!  At last, something that we are in agreement about.  The information
should be accessible and not require learning a whole new syntax.

> Well, I would like to protest loudly at the way he throws his weight about
> on this list for some dubious agenda which has nothing whatsoever to do with
> helping blind people.

I apologise for using up your time and energy.  If my comments are not helpful
on this list then I shall refrain from posting further.  I am interested in
trying to make mathematics accessible beyond my "cosy little academic world"
and I try to learn from others more knowledgeable than myself.  I also try to
help where I can, but I do not wish to "throw my weight around", or even be
seen as doing so.  Again, I apologise for intruding on your mailing list.
Clearly, I misunderstood its purpose.

Andrew Stacey