Re: Emacs learning curve

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Óscar Fuentes <ofv@wanadoo.es>
> Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:05:54 +0200
> 
> Emacs' idiosyncratic keybindings are, without doubt, the higher entry
> barrier nowadays.

Apart of CUA, what other keybindings out there are accepted widely
enough to make them not idiosyncratic?

Let me give you an example.  The keybinding I tend to use most in
Emacs is M-/.  Do we have anything similar in other applications?

More generally, what to do with hundreds if not thousands of
keybindings in Emacs for which there's simply no equivalent
functionality elsewhere?  Those keybindings will always be
``idiosyncratic'', because they cannot be learned anywhere.  CUA is
what? 15 keybindings?

And what if the equivalent functionality has an entirely different
look-and-feel?  A case in point is completion: would you say that we
should redesign the completion UI to be more like the Windows
Explorer's one, whereby typing a character drops down a mouse-
clickable list of possible completions?  How do you sell this to
Emacs users who have the current completion keys wired into their
fingers and brains?

From personal experience, it is not a disaster to use two different
sets of keybindings.  Yes, sometimes you will err and curse.  But it
won't let you abandon a tool that is otherwise useful.  Making Emacs
extremely useful is therefore the single most important way of making
it more popular among those who it targets.