Re: Will default key bindings spell the death of Emacs?

[Alex Schroeder <alex@gnu.org>]

Lars Hansen <larsh@math.ku.dk> writes:

> That is a good point. But I believe people have so different ways to
> work that there is no single style that is the best for everybody.

But then again, usability expert Jeff Raskin claims that whenever
there is something to customize, it means that the developpers didn't
know what design decision  was the best and left it up to the users
(who aren't usability experts, either).

Obviously Emacs is the mother-of-customizable-things, so we are
failing badly according to Raskin's standards.  But we at least try to
make the *defaults* usable according to our own standards.  We might
not be the best usability experts out there, but we all use Emacs day
in and day out.

Therefore, if you really want to change the keybindings -- go right
ahead.  But Emacs is complex software with tons of files, and some of
them maintained by people not part of emacs-devel, and so resolving
new inconsistencies, documenting new keybindings, etc. is going to be
a very very difficult and boring job.  If you look at CUA mode, you
will see how much hard work went into it.

There are good news, too, however:  For certain specific tasks,
people have already documented how to do it, or written the code to
do it -- eg. pc-selection-mode.

The thing to be aware of, however, is that most people on this list
think it is a low-priority problem and they have other more pressing
things on their mind.  So if you really want it, you will have to do
it.

Alex.
-- 
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/alex.pl