# What is the reason for creating the symbols ∞ on the client side?

Take a look at this link: http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/60766/what-is-the-result-of-infinity-minus-infinity

What is the reason for transforming the symbols ∞ on the client side?

Because if someone disable javascript, this is what they see:

So right now I'm pondering what may be the reasons for that decision (I was thinking there are bound to be some advantage otherwise the decision wouldn't have been done).

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Note that the math in question doesn't always transform into unicode characters. You could replace something like $\infty$ with a character easily, but more complicated math would have to be an image (or look really ugly). –  Tikhon Jelvis Dec 11 '11 at 4:06

A few possible reasons:

• The JavaScript library for this already existed, so it required little development time to deploy, as no major changes were required in their code base.

• It saves processing time on the server from not having to generate the images.

• It saves bandwidth, as the LaTeX code is much more compact than the rendered images.

• It avoids frequent round-trips to the server while editing a post, allowing for a smoother user experience. (The LaTeX is rendered live in the preview.)

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why not use MathML instead? –  oenone Sep 1 '11 at 8:03
@oenone While MathML is great in theory, browser support is far from perfect. The number of people having JavaScript disabled is far lower than the number of people having a MathML incompatible browser. –  HenningJ Sep 1 '11 at 10:36