# Some thoughts about Octopress

Octopress has become a popular blogging framework among programmers since its 2.0 release. We can observe this growing from the reading of google keyword tool. It did serve the needs of most programmers comparing to other existing blogging frameworks. To the author, I give my full compliement and respect.

However, as what luikore said: > Octopress uses Rdiscount instead of Maruku for Markdown engine. > Maruku supports (LATEX) math but Rdiscount doesn’t. > Octopress claims itself a blog for hackers, but what hacker doesn’t use (LATEX) math?

Making Octopress to work with MathJax is a pain in the neck (though technically it is not Octopress, it is Jekyll). Even following the instructions provided by luikore cannot completely resolve the problem. I excerpted a few equations from the official site of MathJax to do a display test, and here it is.

The Cauchy-Schwarz Inequality

$\left( \sum_{k=1}^n a_k b_k \right)^2 \leq \left( \sum_{k=1}^n a_k^2 \right) \left( \sum_{k=1}^n b_k^2 \right)$

$\mathbf{V}_1 \times \mathbf{V}_2 = \begin{vmatrix} \mathbf{i} & \mathbf{j} & \mathbf{k} \\ \frac{\partial X}{\partial u} & \frac{\partial Y}{\partial u} & 0 \\ \frac{\partial X}{\partial v} & \frac{\partial Y}{\partial v} & 0 \end{vmatrix}$

An Identity of Ramanujan

$\frac{1}{\Bigl(\sqrt{\phi \sqrt{5}}-\phi\Bigr) e^{\frac25 \pi}} = 1+\frac{e^{-2\pi}} {1+\frac{e^{-4\pi}} {1+\frac{e^{-6\pi}} {1+\frac{e^{-8\pi}} {1+\ldots} } } }$

Maxwell’s Equations

\begin{aligned} \nabla \times \vec{\mathbf{B}} -\, \frac1c\, \frac{\partial\vec{\mathbf{E}}}{\partial t} & = \frac{4\pi}{c}\vec{\mathbf{j}} \\ \nabla \cdot \vec{\mathbf{E}} & = 4 \pi \rho \\ \nabla \times \vec{\mathbf{E}}\, +\, \frac1c\, \frac{\partial\vec{\mathbf{B}}}{\partial t} & = \vec{\mathbf{0}} \\ \nabla \cdot \vec{\mathbf{B}} & = 0 \end{aligned}

Some of the equations are still broken after the hack. I guess it is because \ symbols are escaped. Since I don’t have decent knowledge about ruby packages, it may take me some time to fix.