Re: Emacs Book Vs Emacs Manuals

[Filipp Gunbin <fgunbin@fastmail.fm>]

On 13/05/2015 14:32 +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

> I wasn't advocating to remove the traditional movement keys in
> Emacs. I was rather questioning that they deserve such a prominent
> place in a beginner's tutorial (although a link, with a short
> explanation of their advantages seems to make a lot of sense in any
> case).

To speak for myself - the best tutorial for me was the key bindings
cheatsheet.  Of course, I barely understood the description of some of
them (`C-x c-x', for example), but it was interesting to experiment.

>> Rather, large amount of different keys to remember could lead to
>> thinking of a suitable typing scheme and that's imho is an enjoyable
>> thing.
>
> Different finger memories, different models. The key bindings of the
> arrow keys (with and without modifiers) might make more sense to some --
> especially when you have an "exotic" keyboard layout: cf. the other
> current thread in this list. At least, the arrow keys stay invariant.

The arrow keys aren't conveniently located, even the touch pad (on
laptops which have it) is easier to access.

>> When I realized that right-hand modifiers can be used as well as
>> left-hand, it made my experience much more pleasant.
>
> Yep, and with some binding magic one can re-use those funny (nowadays
> nearly ubiquitous) "Windows" keys. But this is all advanced material,
> where our topic here is "Tutorial(s) for beginners".

For me, the main point is whether the modifier key is doubled on both
sides of Space.  "ctrl" key on the Mac keyboard, for example, is not.
As I can see on my colleagues' keyboards, "Win" key is.

For a beginner, some bindings (like `C-t') may seem too hard to press
unless they are pressed with two hands, which is not the obvious way.

Filipp