Re: Emacs command frequencies:

[Nikolaj Schumacher <me@nschum.de>]

Xah <xahlee@gmail.com> wrote:

> here's my top commands... started maybe few months ago.

Some notes on this.  (Some opinions, and some theses.  The latter
will point to some missing data that could influence the
interpretation.)

- Clearly some individual commands are very common and need to be comfortable.

- Some commands are infrequent enough, that making them comfortable would
be a waste of time.  One could argue that they should be focused on
being easy to remember.  I think that are probably all those beyond the
top 25.

- I am very careful when rebinding default keys.  Not because I think the
defaults are excellent, but because once you rebind one, you likely have
to rebind many more.  Unfortunately, this makes rebinding common keys
less worthwhile.  You can't just rebind the top 25, you'll have to
rebind many more.  If you want to use M-x or C-c, it would even be
thousands.

- A very important aspect is repeated keystrokes.  Clearly, a lot of
next-lines are consecutive, meaning they are easier to type the second
time around.  So as far as finger strain goes, they're slightly
over-represented in the statistic.

- Commands that are repeated frequently should have the highest priority
for one-button keys.  That's why I personally think save-buffer and
kill-this-buffer would be a waste for single keys.  On the other hand
other-window has a terrible default for the same reason.

- There are also commands that presumably appear in groups.  Clearly this
is the case for letter input.  You'll often type hundreds of them in a
row without using anything else.  And you do so with a high speed.  So
it's important that they go well with each other.  The same goes for
navigation commands.  They are often used in rapid succession and should
be usable without much finger movement.  Other commands (like
save-buffer or find-file) are usually executed on their own, during
typing pauses.  That's why I think they can get away with a less
comfortable shortcut, while some less used commands should take priority.

- Another possible conclusion to draw from high frequency of certain
commands (especially if repeated often), is that they aren't efficient.
That's why I replaced most of my usage of other-window with my
window-numbering-mode.  It replaces several invocations by a single one.
I often feel I should use next-line with a prefix, but holding my finger
on C-n is so much less trouble.  (That's why I was thrilled to find
move-to-window-line recently.  It saves me about 10-30 C-n each time I use
it.)


And don't forget about backspace and return.  Those are some terrible keys.
(At least those L-shaped return keys.)  I've replaced them with C-h and
C-m and couldn't be happier.  The same goes for the keys between 0 and
backspace.  On my dvorak layout those are [{ and ]}, and I've moved them
to alt+, alt+., alt+/, alt+= system-wide.  I've also switched ( and )
with < and >.  This really helps "the weakest finger".




regards,
Nikolaj Schumacher