the Modernization of Emacs
in [Lisp]
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From: Tom Lord on 16 Apr 2006 03:55 Miles Bader wrote: <stuff> Gah. Ok, let's just start with "don't confuse yr own muscle memory with what makes Emacs good". Emacs *does* have a very well thought out command set compared to other stuff but what is well thought out about is: a) the semantics of the interaction loop b) the abstract logic of how the commands fit together What is *not* well thought out is the particular choices of keybindings. It's not *poorly* thought out -- it's just nothing special. Now it so happens that there's semantic overlap between the emacs command set and the rest of the world but, for historic reasons, emacs defaults to very different mappings of that command set to key sequences. That's unfortunate and that's part of what Xah is saying (afaict). Ditto the vocabulary (e.g., "frame v. window"). Now, sure, it's an expensive problem to fix Emacs in these respects but, if you loved what is truly good about Emacs, you'd see some point in it. Face it, some snot-nosed geek made up this vocabulary and keybindings over a few late nights in a testosterone laden, sexually charged, computer lab at MIT in the 70s while the cool kids were out in the quad grabbing a ...er... smoke. All the brilliance in Emacs is at a deeper level. And it suffers from the very 70s layer of crud it's buried under. -t p.s.: strange line wrapping in this and other posts is entirely the fault of google who constructed the extremely crappy interface via which i post this message.
From: David Kastrup on 16 Apr 2006 03:59 "Richard G. Riley" <rgrdev(a)gmail.com> writes: > Much as I love emacs and dont agree with "windowizing" it for > newbies, this is a pretty poor defence. If there is a common sense > way of doing something and a long winded convoluted way and the > second option is chosen then it really is a poor show to say "if you > dont like it then fix it yourself.". You are beating a straw horse. The discussion was about having things work differently, not more cumbersomely. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
From: David Kastrup on 16 Apr 2006 04:09 "Tom Lord" <lord(a)emf.net> writes: > Miles Bader wrote: > <stuff> > > > Gah. Ok, let's just start with "don't confuse yr own muscle memory > with > what makes Emacs good". > > Emacs *does* have a very well thought out command set compared > to other stuff but what is well thought out about is: > > a) the semantics of the interaction loop > b) the abstract logic of how the commands fit together > > What is *not* well thought out is the particular choices of > keybindings. > It's not *poorly* thought out -- it's just nothing special. Says you. I find it generally easy to get around with: there are mnemonics for almost anything. Including when to use Meta and/or Control. The one thing which it does not significantly have is QWERTY-friendliness: vi's cursor movement commands are quite more handy, even though they happen to be off-one (so there is the ten-finger-typing home position, and the vi movement home position). Of course, if you don't have a QWERTY keyboard, this will not be an issue. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
From: Miles Bader on 16 Apr 2006 05:00 "Tom Lord" <lord(a)emf.net> writes: > What is *not* well thought out is the particular choices of > keybindings. It's not *poorly* thought out -- it's just nothing > special. Let me put it this way -- it has its own rhythms. In any case, I'm not claiming that Emacs keybindings are insanely great (though they are better than the typical windows bindings in some ways -- in particular arrow keys vs. control-key chords for movement). What I'm claiming is that adopting Xah's suggestions will _fuck with them_, and that once fucked with, it's not trivial to recover, much less recover and still be somehow consistent with the packages/documentation/users out there. If it were the case that C-x/C-c/C-v happened to be free bindings, of course Emacs would have adopted them a long time ago, and perhaps it the "Emacs native" bindings for those commands would have died out by now. However, they aren't free. A shame, but that's the way it is, and there's no obvious way out of the conundrum. -Miles -- Saa, shall we dance? (from a dance-class advertisement)
From: Greg Menke on 16 Apr 2006 09:21
"Tom Lord" <lord(a)emf.net> writes: > Miles Bader wrote: > <stuff> > > Face it, some snot-nosed geek made up this vocabulary and keybindings > over a few late nights in a testosterone laden, sexually charged, > computer > lab at MIT in the 70s while the cool kids were out in the quad grabbing > a > ..er... smoke. All the brilliance in Emacs is at a deeper level. And > it suffers > from the very 70s layer of crud it's buried under. > > -t > > p.s.: strange line wrapping in this and other posts is entirely the > fault of google who constructed the extremely crappy interface > via which i post this message. Its kind of hard to take you seriously on a user interface issue when you have a disclaimer like this at the bottom of your article and you post via a web browser. Gregm |