[seqfan] Re: 23 sequences

[Giovanni Resta]

On 10/02/2013 08.30, L. Edson Jeffery wrote:

> A lot of problems can occur when people write equations using LaTeX, for
> example, which should not be allowed.

I disagree. Usually LaTeX formulas are written using only ascii 
characters. That makes them extremely portable.
There are extensions that allow accented characters (probably even 
Unicode), but that is not the default.

> Others happen, as is quite evident
> from the list in your link, from writing code such as Mathematica. (How can
> a functioning Mathematica program contain nonascii characters?)

Very easily. You can enter and use symbols, like Greek characters,
with a combo, for example, [Esc] b [Esc] is beta.
Moreover Mathematica use special characters, like a single  character
instead of   "!=" to mean "not equal". Usually some of these characters
are automatically expanded to something like "\[beta]" or "!=" when
copied and pasted, but maybe something went wrong.

> Finally, it would be a good thing if the OEIS editing application could be
> modified to detect and disallow nonascii characters in a submission of a
> sequence or edit containing them.

That's a good idea.

giovanni