OpenMath

OK, I have to admit, OpenMath is really cool. Here's the list of software and tools that work with it - all pretty thin, actually, but their heart's in the right place. This is exactly what I was looking for. It's always such a relief to find somebody else has done the work already!

Note from the software-and-tools page: there's an OpenMath-to-LaTeX translator (apparently written in Perl, no less!) that ... well, it does what I was discussing earlier today. So very cool. (Update: it was written in 2000 and is therefore not at all OO, but it's unencumbered and built on a rather slick modular architecture, so I've asked the author if I could polish it up [rewrite it] and put it on CPAN. Very, very slick.)

So here's the plan, more or less:

• XML, binary, and Declarative versions of representation
• LaTeX output
• Octave output and manipulation and parsing back in
• Some kind of overarching systems description a la "semantic Excel"
• Some kind of graphical presentation as active areas a la Equation Editor (but better)

I'm this close to being able to put together that stylus-to-LaTeX math manipulation tool I was thinking about in the 90's, just by using off-the-shelf components. I need a tablet. I badly need a tablet.