Re: [PATCH] Add support for $…$ latex fragments followed by a dash

["Sébastien Miquel" <sebastien.miquel@posteo.eu>]

Hi,

Ihor Radchenko writes:
> We can theoretically make a change to support "-", but then it will be
> logical to support $i$th as well. (If we don't some users will still be
> confused after trying to write $i$th and then not getting the expected
> results).

I disagree.
  1. The $…$- pattern is also used for other common constructions, such
     as $n$-dimensional, $K$-lipschitz, etc. As for $n$−th vs $n$th, both
     are commonly used. In french, $n$− is the correct one.
  2. It does not logically follow that we should support $i$th as well,
     since, as you point out, it'd be impossible. One argument for the
     patch is that is it very simple.
  3. The $n$th construction failing is not as confusing. One
     understands quickly what the limitation is, and several
     workarounds are available, whereas there's no good reason for the
     $n$− limitation, and it's harder to think of a workaround.

I should mention that the zero-width space character can be used to
work around both limitations.

> Given the raised concerns, may we solve the issue with too verbose
> \(...\) unambiguous syntax using the following approach:
> 1. Fontify \(...\) replacing the brackets with a single character. For
>     example:
>
>        \(...\) -> ⁅...⁆
>
> 2. Provide convenient way to input \(\) brackets through
>     electric-pair-mode or trough org-cdlatex-mode.
If the $…$ syntax were to be deprecated, this would be a nice
addition, indeed. As a user, I find it quite satisfactory (with some
added utility to easily switch between the \(…\) and \[…\] syntax).
Some possible drawbacks :
  - are the display hacks scalable in a large document, with many LaTeX
    snippets ?
  - this feature may still be hard to discover, turn on and use by
    users more concerned with mathematical content and less familiar
    with emacs features such as fontification, automatic insertion of
    complex delimiters and whatnot.
  - hiding the syntax feels a bit weird, although it is already
    done with emphasis markers.

With respect to the possible deprecation of the $…$ syntax, the
drawbacks and complexity of this alternative should be weighted
against those of the current $…$ syntax, but no one has really spelled
out what the latter are. We're trading complexity here for complexity
there, fixing the false positives (but how common are they ?) and the
false negatives (which can be an annoyance while writing a snippet).

Thank you for bringing this up,

Regards,

-- 
Sébastien Miquel