Re: Some developement questions

[hw <hw@adminart.net>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> [...]
>   > The arrow keys (that includes PgUp and PgDown and Home and End) in
>   > combination with C-a and C-e are better.  That's all I use for moving
>   > around.
>
> I use sequences of cursor motion commands all the time.
> [...]
> This is the normal way to do cursor motion in Emacs.  You can do it
> any way you like, but we should encourage people to learn this way.

I'm fine with encouraging people to learn these movement keys, but how
do the available movement keys give beginners good reasons to use Emacs,
and how do they make using it better for them?

Beginners will probably consider "the normal way to do cursor motion in
Emacs" as the most complicated and awkward way to do cursor motion
anywhere.  Since motion is important when using an editor, building such
a wall against it seems particularly well suited to scare them off to
other editors which appear to be easier to use.

Tutorials which take this into account more strongly might be more
encouraging to use Emacs in the first place, and then beginners might
want to learn the special movement keys.

The current tutorial is doing it the other way round, and aside from
external sources, it is quite likely the first thing beginners will read
about Emacs: The first thing they read is the thing that will scare them
off the most.  How are they going to understand that Emacs is not
difficult to use at all?


BTW, I still don't see how anyone could move around efficiently when it
requires to press ESC.  Does it require a special keyboard?