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

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

brakjoller@hotmail.com (Barman Brakjoller) writes:

> 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.

The contortions one has to go through in order to switch from one
direction of movement to another make this quite unergonomic, and you
have the control key locking down another finger at the same time.
Remember those keys for remote connections or other opportunities
where the arrow keys are fscked up, but I'd not mind them beyond of
that.

Contrast that to vi, where the keyboard bindings for movement are
simply _the_ thing to use.

Is it mere coincidence that several major Emacs programmers (RMS, Ben
Wing) have been hampered by RSI over long times?

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum