Re: .emacs poser

[Tilman Ahr <tilman.ahr@mailbox.tu-berlin.de>]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> Dale Snell <ddsnell@frontier.com> writes:

[...]

>> I can't speak for European keyboards.
>
> The US layout is better for programming
[...]

Arguably, but for most layouts and programming languages, that probably
hosds true.

> Semi-colon, and all the brackets, are better placed on the US layout
> keyboard,

I'm not convinced of that, at least for the DE-DE keyboard layout.

> and for whatever language-specific chars you need, there is the
> compose key.

Although I'd *hate* to have to use that to get Ä,Ö,Ü and ß. I use those
*a lot* when writing in German, and the DE-DE layout makes them
accessible by a single Keystroke.

I do have the „dead keys“ option enabled (to make typing the usual
accents for french, at least, feasible without much ado) and remap
CAPSLOCK[1] to the compose key, nonetheless. 

> Which by the way is another solution that I think is
> much better than setting this up in Emacs.

Yes. Definitely. But there are (coff, coff) Operating Systems that make
using a compose key hard, if not impossible… 

>> and the ever popular copyright (©), trademark (™),
>> and registered trademark signs (®).
>
> Serious?

Depending on the area one works in, and considering how the US civil
justice system works(fsvo), I could see that. Personally, I know how to
create © and ® on my keyboard, how I'd get the [TM] symbol, I have no
Idea. I believe I recall it's trivial with a compose key, and should be
doable without, but I don't need that symbol other than for ironic
remarks on usenet, and there, [TM] does the trick quite satisfactorily.

>> If I need anything more demanding, like en and em
>> dashes,

Those, I use frequently. And real quote marks as demanded by German
typographic conventions. I don't even need the compose key for
them. Other than the en-dash…

>> or primes instead of quotes, I'll fire up a text processor
>
> A word processor? Like OpenOffice or Word?

I'd guess he actually meant a text processor, like TeX/LaTeX

>> and go that way.  Of course, in a purely text forum,
>> like this, someone would undoubtedly complain if I
>> were to attach the entire message as a PDF.
>
> Yes. PDF is for things to be *printed*, like manuals,
> or scientific work with need for special notation.

Actually, PDF allows for very neat features used for
on-screen-presentation and even has some rather sophisticated features
for dealing with textual matter. Those are just aspects of that format
that never took off.

So, in everyday use: Yes, it's mainly used as a format for well-defined
visual representation of … data. And in this day and age of the
paperless office, these are usually printed out.

I had a job interview last week where the interviewer had my e-mail with
all the relevant stuff for my application (CV, Certificates, References
and all that) as a PDF on his PCs screen right in front of him, but
still printed it out. On good paper, using a colour ink-jet printer that
went to photo mode, because there was a photo on the CV (most german
employers really appreciate a CV with a decent photo. No idea why). That
whole printout went straight to the bin fifteen minutes later, btw.

>> There are certain organizations that want their
>> documents written in a certain format, which may
>> include Pilcrow and Section marks, and other such
>> things.  Happily, I don't deal with those.  (Again,
>> I'd use LaTeX or Groff for that.)
>
> Groff! Wow, you are a man (pun) of many surprises. Is
> that used outside of the Unix manpages world?

It used to be. And I remember coming across a couple of projects where
it was used to nicely format simple textual data in an automated way
even a few years ago…

> LaTeX is great obviously. I would drop the word
> processor and use Emacs (or Vim) + LaTeX.

Wellyes. No. For a one-off, one to ten pages, needs to look somewhat
presentable thingie, I'll take LO, thank you. If it actually needs to
look *good*, or be reusable for different documents with a similar
layout (visually orientated), I'll use Scribus, or whatever other
DTP-Software I can get my hands on. (Restaurant menues would be one
example that comes to mind)

If it's about presenting a large(ish) amount of text in a well-typeset,
neat way (Books and the like), or about automating stuff (like
generating invoices from a database), TeX/LaTeX rules supreme.

>> That's limiting yourself.  If you need accented
>> characters, learn how to enter them in a general way,
>> not just specific words.
>
> It is not about *ability*, it is about *speed* and
> *ergonomics* and *limiting the mental effort* when
> doing a routine thing, as typing.

Yes. I like abbrev-mode for larger projects. Takes a while to get that
up to speed, but when it's ready, it flies.

> To memorize and type some four or five hit combination just to get a
> goofy char that is (almost) never used doesn't make sense.

That combination of a non-US layout with dead keys makes most of what I
use regularly a breeze. For really rare stuff, Compose works well. It's
not really that hard to remember the more usual combinations.

Footnotes: 
[1]  I have no idea why anybody would have a use for that key's original
     function on anything but a mechanic typewriter. Other than SHOUTING
     YOUR LUNGS OUT…