Asciimath-formatted math can be evaluated just fine in most calculators or languages, after all mimicking the patterns used in other math systems is one of its design goals.
It's true that caou's installation is cumbersome but the idea is that most users will use caoutchouc through sharecaou, which is just a web interface (it's a fork of sharelatex/overleaf).
I'll echo other comments and say that using pandoc to convert from markdown to latex is the best solution I've found.
Actually I've written myself a wrapper over it that extends markdown with asciimath (which lets you input math the way you would in a calculator) and improves support for embedding latex directly.
Markdown has about the same feature set of Microsoft's WordPad (the bulit in RTF editor in Windows). If the document you're writing can be structured with simple Markdown, why not just use an RTF editor and enjoy WYSIWYG, graphical image resizing and positioning, and great portability?
I have tried to see the use case for Markdown for a long time but have been unable to do so. And yes, pandoc understands RTF.
I think the best use case for Markdown is when you specifically want 'not too rich text' – for example, I like the way it's used on Stack Exchange. It needs to be combined with another tool, like a web application, to take care of layout.
I use it because I can easily insert Latex into it for math. I also use it to generate automated reports (e.g. update this document you made last year with new data).
Location: Spain, Barcelona
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: Yes, anywhere in the world
Technologies: Mostly cryptocurrencies (ETH and Bitcoin)
Résumé/CV: https://albert.sh / https://github.com/corollari
Email: whoishiring@albert.sh
Currently majoring in three degrees (CS, Maths and Telecommunications). I've also contributed to a few open source projects, including metamask and the solidity compiler.
Looking for a summer internship.
A few months ago I built a Chrome extension that replaces the new tab page with an anki window, in an attempt to improve my browsing habits and it seems people overall are finding it useful so far,
https://github.com/corollari/fixedHackerNews
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fixedhackerne...