Re: Emacs learning curve

[Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi>]

* 2010-07-16 20:23 (+0200), Tassilo Horn wrote:

> Try using VI on one of those layouts, and then tell me if it's
> convenient:
>
>   http://itproductivitytools.com/images/dvorak.jpg
>   http://neo-layout.org/grafik/druckvorlage/neo-druckvorlage.png

I know that Vi’s movement keys (hjkl) were designed for QWERTY keyboard.
But Emacs’s default C-f, C-b, C-n and C-p are also spread all over the
place in those keyboards. Emacs’s mnemonics (fbnp) won’t make them
ergonomic and nice for new (power) users to adopt.

In order to make editing keys ergonomic and elegant, Dvorak people need
to rebind some keys anyway and that’s in both Vi and Emacs. The
difference is that the default Vi keys are very much optimal for QWERTY
keyboard, and QWERTY is what most people use. Emacs movement and editing
keys are not ergonomically optimal for _any_ well-known keyboard layout.

You know, the arrow keys are in reversed T position:

      ↑    
    ← ↓ →

People learn to use them very easily because of their mutual positions
and because they are friendly for muscle memory, not because there are
(mnemonic) arrows painted on them.

Powerful text editor should depend on ergonomics and muscle memory and
make rebinding keys easy (for different keyboard layouts like Dvorak).
While Emacs is otherwise very powerful text editor it has these serious
flaws:

  - The default movement keys are not ergonomic.
    
  - While rebinding movement keys is technically easy, in practice it is
    very difficult because many/some major modes will reuse the f-b-n-p
    mnemonic practice anyway. User would need tons of custom hooks for
    different major modes to change bindings like C-c C-fbnp to
    something more ergonomic.

The established (mnemonic) practice leaves me to conclude that
tolerating the suboptimal default keys is still lesser pain. The
situation is suboptimal but will probably never change.