Re: Emacs key bindings through the ages

[Xah Lee <xah@xahlee.org>]

emacs's keybind is actually the worst possible in both ergonomic and
ease of use considerations. Likely a randomly generated shortcut set
will have a 30% chance better.

See: Why Emacs's Keyboard Shortcuts Are Painful
http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_kb_shortcuts_pain.html

The Modernization of Emacs
http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html

  Xah
  xah@xahlee.org
\xAD\xF4 http://xahlee.org/

On Nov 13, 10:03 pm, bramble <cadet.bram...@gmail.com> wrote:
The default GNU Emacs key bindings seem to work very well. They seem
particularly well-thought-out, in fact. Like stones in a stream, worn
by movement and time to have very few rough edges... They mesh well
with the ascii control characters, and I particularly like how M-<foo>
is often used as a sort of "turbo boost" to C-<foo> (like C-f vs. M-f,
for example). In cases where it makes no sense to boost the C-key,
Emacs often has elegant mnemonic bindings, for example, M-u, M-l, M-c.

Were the bindings designed as such right from the beginning by only
RMS? Or have they morphed over the years, with user and developer
requests guiding changes? Can anyone shed any light on the history of
the default key binding choices?

(Please note, I don't wish to start another thread comparing Emacs key
combinations with CUA bindings. I realize that, for whatever reasons,
some people just don't like or can't get used to Emacs key combos, but
I was hoping this thread would simply address the development and
history of Emacs bindings over time.)

Thanks.