From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Nikolaj Schumacher Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Emacs command frequencies: Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:28:10 +0100 Message-ID: References: <74160b46-e541-436a-a776-c8bd53d6cd55@o4g2000pra.googlegroups.com> <1f28a20e-0c9f-4478-a85c-27ae40ed7fc9@v16g2000prc.googlegroups.com> <4d476218-bd76-4d41-8a12-1428dfba9e9b@s9g2000prg.googlegroups.com> <1226211980.88912@nntp.acecape.com> <7a377b0d-9a02-4cd9-947a-8f04676fad8c@z28g2000prd.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1226489326 20847 80.91.229.12 (12 Nov 2008 11:28:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:28:46 +0000 (UTC) Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org To: Xah Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Nov 12 12:29:46 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1L0Dup-0001TC-EY for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:29:43 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:60190 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1L0Dth-0008Kb-GR for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:28:33 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1L0DtP-0008Iu-KI for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:28:15 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1L0DtO-0008I2-Ta for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:28:15 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=54542 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1L0DtO-0008Hq-Ns for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:28:14 -0500 Original-Received: from dd18200.kasserver.com ([85.13.138.168]:60676) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1L0DtN-0004CP-Rc for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:28:14 -0500 Original-Received: from thursday (BAH5224.bah.pppool.de [77.135.82.36]) by dd18200.kasserver.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id ED9B41845C375; Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:28:13 +0100 (CET) In-Reply-To: (Xah's message of "Tue\, 11 Nov 2008 20\:19\:47 -0800 \(PST\)") User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.2.50 (darwin) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:59683 Archived-At: Xah 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