Re: C-p, C-b, C-f, and C-n... why?

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

casioculture@gmail.com wrote on 29 Nov 2005 21:38:16 -0800:

> In the tutorial it suggests I use  C-p, C-b, C-f, and C-n rather than
> arrow keys, why should i?

There's no "should" here, only a suggestion.

Sometimes you'll just want to move by a single character or line, or just
a few.  For example, you might have done M-b to move back a few words,
then want to move two characters into the last of these - with C-f you
don't have to move your right hand to the other side of the keyboard.

> What's even more annoying is this: C-p requires left hand C and right
> hand p, and then C-b requries right hand C and left hand b. Same goes
> for C-f and C-n.

I just use the left hand control key for all these.  Everybody's
different.  :-)

It's probably rare to want to mix lots of these combinations.

> Trying to get used to this is such a pain. It's ludicrous.

Well, don't do it, then!  You've got the special purpose arrow keys on
your keyboard so if it suits you, use them.

Perhaps the real question is why does the tutorial emphasise C-p, etc?
Remember that Emacs dates from the mid 1980s, when you worked telephones
by rotating a dial with your finger, music was bought on 12" diameter
vinyl disks and lots of keyboards didn't have arrow keys.  The tutorial
in the upcoming Emacs 22 mentions the arrow keys, but still recommends
C-f, etc.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Munich, Germany)
Email: aacm@muuc.dee; to decode, wherever there is a repeated letter
(like "aa"), remove half of them (leaving, say, "a").