Re: Emacs for new users

[Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>]

On Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:04:47 -0500, Chong Yidong <cyd@stupidchicken.com> wrote:
>Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:
>>> With that said, I think a solution to the learning-emacs-in-classroom and
>>> emacs-for-new-users problems is the same: include a .emacs which turns
>>> on things like CUA mode to make operation more familiar.
>>
>> The problem is that it does not work as good as it could in all
>> situations. Since CUA is not the default not so much effort in
>> getting rid of all ruogh things. Not that you can't work around them,
>> but it is not so easy for a newcomer.
>
> The primary barrier to CUA is that it destroys the long-established
> standard that C-c LETTER is free for binding to Emacs user commands.
>
> So we won't be moving to CUA any time soon.  For those that want it,
> it's just a click away on the Options menu.

CUA also interferes in a non-trivial manner with `C-x', which is used
far more often than `C-c'.  I am always annoyed a bit when I start
typing `C-x C-f' but pause half-way through to think of a good name for
a new buffer, only to notice that a region has just been killed.  Oops!

Having said that I like CUA mode a lot (especially the rectangular
selection mode and region highlighting).  It is useful even when Emacs
runs inside xterm windows, so it is enabled more often than not in my
Emacs sessions of late.