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

[Trevor Saunders]

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.

con? mathml is a *standard* for representing math on the web, I'm
really not shure how a standard can be a conn since the authors won't
make any money from the standard existing or being implemented.  If you
want to say that math player is a con that atleast makes sense, but never having
used math player I won't comment on the claims accuracy.  However I will
say that it is  very unfortunate that we can't access mathml content in
any webrowser that can render it the same as sighted people.

> "...I have a few documents I can post samples from which will > soon
> disabuse you of that notion."
> 
> Once again, he's trying to frighten people off LaTeX in his usual
> condescending and thuggish manner. Just who the devil does he think
> he is to tell us what is complicated or not?

 The point is that LaTex is not the format that you really wan't to
 recieve math in, and as a blind person I agree, it often works, and
 there is often no better alternative, but its not wonderful.  When I'm
 reading math I don't want to have to filter out formating commands and
 look up other people's macro definition just so I can understand what
 they are saying.

> "For each example that you can decode, I can provide another even
> more complicated example (and one that I've actually used in an
> article)."
> 
> 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


LaTex is an _type_setting_language_ not a language for communicating
math, so he wrote the LaTex that would produce the formating he wanted.
Note that this also proves his earlier point that you really don't want
to read laTex unless there is no other option.

> person couldn't learn to hack complicated LaTeX?

The point is that it would be hard to read, and that's true there is
complicated LaTex out there, and it is hard to get the content out of,
its do able but its not trivial, and a waste of your time.

> "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 and the "raw latex"
> on wikipedia and wikibook serve that purpose perfectly well.  I

I would disagree, reading alt tags for images is particularly painful
because some screen readers can only read the whole tag in one shot, but
There is also the issue that LaTex just isn't the format you want to
read, it contains a lot of formating commands, that help you understand
nothing, and consume cycles that could be spent on something useful.  So
while I need the information and can get it from raw LaTex on wikipedia
I think that I _have_ to get it that way sucks.

> would much rather read raw latex (which is very expressive and terse
> at the same time) than fiddle about with some buggy software that is
> designed on the premise that blind folks are too stupid to use a
> mainstream typesetting tool used by literally millions around the
> world, including academics and publishers from all nationalities.

yes, and they use it as a format to _write_ math not to _read_ math.
You will not that most people make available for reading the pdf they
produce from LaTex source not the source itself.  So you can see that
infact he is correct most people would prefer to read something other
than raw LaTex.

math player may be buggy, I have never used it and have no idea, but it
is only one tool for using mathml.  We can and should have better tools
for getting access to mathml, particularly web browsers should directly
provide the information to screen readers.

> "... you should protest loudly and explain that raw LaTeX is not an
> accessible way to present mathematics."

I agree, I'm not sure that mathml is the best answer, but if we can get
good support from web browsers and screen readers it should be much
better than reading raw LaTex.

> >Now I realise that there is a distinction between pragmatism and idealism, and
> >that pragmatically it may be a good idea to learn a few basic LaTeX symbols.

I'm not sure of the details here, but it may also be the case that it is
good to know LaTex so that one can accessibily produces documents such
as home work and papers.

> >But at the same time, you should protest loudly and explain that raw LaTeX is
> >not an accessible way to present mathematics.

yes, but given the current state of the world I'm not completely sure
that websites have a better alternative.  What I men is that if a
website uses mathml then currently you _need_ windows and internet
explorer and math player and jaws to access the content.  Providing both
LaTex and mathml helps this alittle.  On the other hand having a lot of
math on the internet that is completely unusable because mathml is only
accessible with one tool chain might cause other browsers and screen
readers to start working with mathml.

Trev
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 836 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/blindmath_nfbnet.org/attachments/20110403/5ff33430/attachment.sig>