Re: Emacs-diffs Digest, Vol 50, Issue 7

[Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org>]

>     Why does it matter whether it was IBM, Apple or M$ who invented the
>     C-z C-x C-c C-v shortcuts (and thus broke compatibility with Emacs)?
>
> someone else said it was unfair to attribute these to Microsoft, since
> others actually designed the interface.

I certainly remember reading IBM CUA Guidelines a decade ago
there were no such keys as C-x C-c C-v defined.  So it is unfair to
blame CUA designers for defining these stupid keys.  On the contrary,
they did a good job by defining neutral keys: S-DEL for cut, C-INS for
Copy, and S-INS for Paste.  I can't track down who first introduced
C-x C-c C-v.  Quite likely it was Microsoft trying to mimic Apple's
special keys Command-x Command-c Command-v at the time when the Windows
key was not yet duplicated from Apple's Command key.

>     No matter what we think or feel, or whether history is on our side,
>     most "modern" applications use these bindings -- including GNOME, KDE
>     and Firefox, so today it is Emacs which is "incompatible" with "common
>     practice".
>
> That is why it is important to note that Emacs and its command set
> came first.

This is especially important for Emacs newbies whose first question about
Emacs nowadays is how to change C-x C-c C-v keys to cut, copy and paste.

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/