ChapterZero

I had an awesome thought just now. I was printing out a nice tutorial to LaTeX when it occurred to me that it should be more than possible to translate all my blog entries into TeX format.

This would be a really useful ability for people like me, who would like to experiment with TeX with meaningful material and have a Blog Box. Of course, I make the assumptions that 1)There are other such people and 2) my blog contains meaningful material.

But I was trying to pin down a concrete way of doing it: obviously, rewriting the HTML template with TeX code so blogger publishes directly into TeX is one way, but that leaves the possibility of contamination (\likethis \for \example) in the material. How about rewriting the template so it publishes to XML. Then I could write a simple cgi program to translate that file into both an HTML version suitable for publishing to the web and for TeXing. The cool thing would be, instead of referring direct to the HTML file, visitors could refer to the cgi program, thereby recieving an updated translation all the time (so there is no possibility of there being a newer XML file and them seeing the translation of an older one). I’m sure there are other ways.

That idea about blogger publishing to XML raising a point about the way blogger is designed: there are so many things that could be done to make it more powerful. But I love it just the way it is; it is sufficiently cool in both interface and intent and easy enough to use to motivate me to write.

This is hopefully the end of my morning blogging; I want to get something done besides this, you know.

Possibly relevant posts:

• Threads (1/8/2003)
• is a family blog possible? (12/8/2001)
• Away for Christmas (12/22/2001)