On 6/17/06, Eliot Lear <lear(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com> wrote:
I do think that ASCII art has its limits, particularly when it comes to
mathematics. But I think a more gradual evolution is called for in this
case, with more consideration given to not only the normative issue but
all the others Joel raised.
Eliot
I believe one gradual approach that hasn't been discussed is using
Unicode instead of ASCII. Many of the problems of representing
mathematics and diagrams could be resolved that way, while still
retaining the compatibility and portability advantages of plain text.
The majority of the solutions I've seen proposed would end up using
Unicode as their base character set, so why not cut out the elaborate
markup languages and use Unicode directly?
I just whipped up some sample fixed-width Unicode art, to illustrate
the possibilities:
Unicode Math
______
−b±√b²−4ac
──────────
2a
Unicode Box Drawing
┌────────────────┐
│ This is a box │
├────────────────┤
│With another box│
│ underneath │
└────────────────┘
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf