Re: Emacs learning curve

[Tassilo Horn]

On Friday 16 July 2010 22:10:20 Teemu Likonen wrote:

Hi!

> Powerful text editor should depend on ergonomics and muscle memory and
> make rebinding keys easy (for different keyboard layouts like Dvorak).

I think this muscle memory statement is much overstated.  It's the main
argument why VI is better than emacs.  While I think it is true, that
the basic editing/searching/navigation commands should be easily
accessible (and I think they are in emacs), these ergonomics should
never take precedence over consistency and the ease to remember them
(which mnemonics facilitate).

I use quite a few emacs modes on only a weekly or monthly basis.  If the
keys of these modes wouldn't be based on mnemonics but ergonomic
positions on a QUERTY keyboard, I'd have a hard time using them and `C-h
w' would be the most frequently used command.  A power-user of these
modes has the possibility to rebind the important commands to shorted
keys, so she can get them as ergonomic (for her layout) as she feels the
need to.  Defaults are a different story.

And, no matter what I do in emacs, being it programming, writing texts,
reading/writing news, or doing spreadsheet calculations, I spend far
more time thinking than issuing editing commands.  And from the editing
command fraction, 99% are self-insert-command which I chose my keyboard
layout for and thus they are ergonomic (for me).  Even if the "real"
editing command bindings would be changed so that I can type them 10
times faster, that wouldn't buy me more than a some tenth of a percent
of time I would need to write that program/text/spreadsheet with the
current bindings.  Most probably, it would rather take me longer, cause
the missing mnemonics made me forget some keys and I'd have to look them
up again.

Bye,
Tassilo