[UEB Maths] Two queries from Bruce and Janet's meeting in Sydney

[Janet Reynolds]

Hi=20
Bruce and I managed to fit in a face to face meeting in while I was in
Sydney for the Round Table conference. With help from Bill, Josie and
Leona, we discussed two things, one was the best way to use the
different types of grade 1 indicators for Mathematical expressions in an
educational setting (effectively looking at the examples that we've been
discussing in 1.4), and the other was the feasibility of incorporating
key symbols for trig functions like sin, cos and tan into UEB. Neither
discussion was conclusive, but the meeting did generate some clearer
questions.=20

One was whether the code design rules would let us make grade 1 passage
indicators "implicit" in certain situations. This is something Stephen
has already raised. I guess it could be similar to the BANA computer
code, where indicators are not needed if a piece of computer language is
set apart by blank lines. I thought Joe might be a good person to tell
us what the implications of that idea would be. Also, nobody liked the
"use indicators" which I had put in front of the grade 1 passage
indicators so they could stand on a line of their own. Will the code
design rules let us put the passage indicator on a line of its own
without the dots 5, 5, 123456?=20

The other question was about the trig functions. If we were to have key
symbols like they currently have in the UK and Australia then they would
have to fit with the code design rules. One possibility would be to
treat them as a shape (so instead of s i n you would have ed s). But
then because of the rules associated with shape symbols you would either
need a space or a terminator before the variable which is a bit clumsy.
Another possibility would be to ask for a new symbol to be assigned,
such as ch, with an associated rule that ch s could be followed directly
by the variable.  I wondered Stephen if you had thought about this at
all. Are the braille readers in the UK likely to be disadvantaged by
losing the key symbols and their variants that Bruce and Bill have found
so powerful, and if so, do any elegant solutions spring to mind?=20

All comments would be most welcome. I will then decide at what stage we
need a conference call. Janet