From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Xah Lee Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Emacs key bindings through the ages Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:33:52 -0800 (PST) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: References: <1195020235.983333.46390@o38g2000hse.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-2022-JP Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1195116531 13737 80.91.229.12 (15 Nov 2007 08:48:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 08:48:51 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Nov 15 09:48:54 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1IsaP8-000193-AD for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 15 Nov 2007 09:48:54 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IsaOv-0003Ge-5U for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 15 Nov 2007 03:48:41 -0500 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!d21g2000prf.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 35 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 69.236.97.82 Original-X-Trace: posting.google.com 1195115632 24724 127.0.0.1 (15 Nov 2007 08:33:52 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 08:33:52 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: d21g2000prf.googlegroups.com; posting-host=69.236.97.82; posting-account=qPxGtQkAAADb6PWdLGiWVucht1ZDR6fn User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/419.3 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3, gzip(gfe), gzip(gfe) Content-Disposition: inline Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:153830 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:49262 Archived-At: 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 $B-t(B http://xahlee.org/ On Nov 13, 10:03 pm, bramble 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- is often used as a sort of "turbo boost" to C- (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.