Re: C-f, C-b, C-n and C-p or right, left, down, up?

[Kevin Rodgers <ihs_4664@yahoo.com>]

Barman Brakjoller wrote:

> From the Emacs tutorial (C-h t):
> 
>  "You can also move the cursor with the arrow keys, if your terminal
> has
>  arrow keys.  We recommend learning C-b, C-f, C-n and C-p for three
>  reasons.  First, they work on all kinds of terminals.  Second, once
>  you gain practice at using Emacs, you will find that typing these
> Control
>  characters is faster than typing the arrow keys (because you do not
>  have to move your hands away from touch-typing position).  Third,
> once
>  you form the habit of using these Control character commands, you can
>  easily learn to use other advanced cursor motion commands as well."
> 
> Is it worth it? I'm using Emacs on w32 and Linux and are quite happy
> with my arrow keys, but the argument above about not having to move
> away from the main part of the keyboard sounds logical.
> 
> I would like to know about you other guys and gals experiences.

For me the third point is the most important: the consistency between
the Control-modified, Meta-modified, and Control-Meta-modified keys
makes it easy to learn the advanced commands and avoid repetitive C-key
commands when 1 M-key or C-M-key will do.  And this applies to
deletion/killing commands as well as motion commands.

-- 
Kevin Rodgers