From: phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord)
To: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
Cc: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Why does the tutorial talk about C-n/C-p etc?
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2016 09:58:15 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87y49q64eg.fsf@russet.org.uk> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <E1aduN2-00066y-Q1@fencepost.gnu.org> (Richard Stallman's message of "Thu, 10 Mar 2016 01:46:52 -0500")
Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
> Users who learn move the cursor with arrow keys in Emacs experience
> slow editing. We should get them started the way that works better.
I have doubts that you have any strong evidence for this. The arrows
keys work perfectly well in my experience. In addition, there is the
mouse. And if that is still too slow, you can use things like ace-jump.
The mouse and arrows keys also have an additional huge advantage: they
work any where, including outside Emacs.
Even if you are correct, then you still have to account for the negative
effect putting "how to move the cursor" in front of new users. Most of
them see this and think, "why is this so hard" (I have at least weak
evidence of this, from sitting behind new users and watching).
The point of a tutorial is not to teach people to become brilliantly
efficent power users. It's to get them going, and to see the advantages
as quickly as possible.
Phil
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2016-03-10 9:58 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 76+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2016-03-09 15:38 Why does the tutorial talk about C-n/C-p etc? Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
2016-03-09 15:50 ` jpff
2016-03-09 15:50 ` Oleh Krehel
2016-03-09 16:03 ` Kaushal Modi
2016-03-09 18:25 ` Yuri Khan
2016-03-10 20:28 ` Alexey Veretennikov
2016-03-09 16:48 ` Drew Adams
2016-03-09 18:26 ` Yuri Khan
2016-03-09 19:05 ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2016-03-09 19:07 ` Drew Adams
2016-03-09 19:21 ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2016-03-10 5:48 ` Tom
2016-03-09 16:12 ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-09 16:39 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-09 17:11 ` Marcin Borkowski
2016-03-09 20:22 ` John Wiegley
2016-03-09 21:32 ` Tim Cross
2016-03-09 21:42 ` John Wiegley
2016-03-10 0:30 ` Evgeny Panasyuk
2016-03-10 5:54 ` Tom
2016-03-10 7:12 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-10 12:49 ` Evgeny Panasyuk
2016-03-10 21:22 ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-10 21:39 ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2016-03-10 22:06 ` Evgeny Panasyuk
2016-03-12 1:53 ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-10 6:46 ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-10 9:58 ` Phillip Lord [this message]
2016-03-10 10:26 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-10 14:45 ` Stefan Monnier
2016-03-10 15:07 ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-10 15:42 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-10 15:48 ` Marcin Borkowski
2016-03-10 16:16 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-10 17:47 ` Marcin Borkowski
2016-03-11 11:21 ` Filipp Gunbin
2016-03-11 11:38 ` Yuri Khan
2016-03-11 14:40 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-11 16:57 ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-11 17:34 ` Marcin Borkowski
2016-03-11 18:11 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-11 22:00 ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-12 6:51 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-12 7:17 ` Marcin Borkowski
2016-03-12 23:30 ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-12 23:26 ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-12 1:52 ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-10 23:26 ` John Wiegley
2016-03-11 2:10 ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2016-03-11 8:01 ` Dani Moncayo
2016-03-13 10:54 ` H. Dieter Wilhelm
2016-03-13 17:09 ` Stefan Monnier
2016-03-11 16:45 ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-12 19:25 ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-12 20:09 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-13 11:36 ` Tom
2016-03-13 16:36 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-13 17:08 ` Stefan Monnier
2016-03-13 17:27 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-13 18:41 ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2016-03-13 19:03 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-13 19:14 ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2016-03-13 20:27 ` Marcin Borkowski
2016-03-14 12:16 ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-14 14:14 ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2016-03-15 15:19 ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-13 19:46 ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-13 20:15 ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2016-03-14 12:15 ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-14 12:15 ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-14 16:33 ` Eli Zaretskii
2016-03-12 21:34 ` John Wiegley
2016-03-12 23:33 ` Phillip Lord
2016-03-12 1:50 ` Richard Stallman
2016-03-12 19:14 ` Chad Brown
2016-03-12 21:05 ` Evgeny Panasyuk
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