4 ms·

what a lot of people fail to realise is that emacs key bindings are consistent with other tools. Take a look at bash (or the korn shell): begin of line (C-a);

what a lot of people fail to realise is that emacs key bindings *are* consistent with other tools. Take a look at bash (or the korn shell): begin of line (C-a); end of line (C-e); kill rest of line (C-k). Emacs key bindings are the same. Not everybody grew up using windows.

still_grokking 5y ago
That's because GNU ReadLine uses Emacs key-bindings. It's not the other way around.
- toolslive 5y ago
  I think these key bindings go (at least) back to csh.
  - ByteJockey 5y ago
    csh's initial release was 2 years after emacs.
Veen 5y ago
> Not everybody grew up using windows. No, but almost everybody did. Very few people grew up using korn, readline, and emacs.
- G3rn0ti 5y ago
  But I’d argue learning basic Emacs key bindings gives you the benefit of becoming better on any Linux terminal. Going through the tutorial does not take much time. I think the author is right about the arcane terminology („meta key“, „buffer“, „window“, „frame“ etc) that should be changed and, too, configuring CUA Mode by default to help newbies a bit. I personally prefer using „control c“ and „control v“ for copy and pasting. Mind you if you like to use keyboard macros, you can’t use CUA mode copy/cut/paste bindings in them. That confused me quite a bit as beginner. However, I don’t think I ever got confused by Emacs undo system. It basically does the same thing as in other editors, just the key binding is different.
  - Veen 5y ago
    > It basically does the same thing as in other editors, just the key binding is different I think it's the way redo works that's confusing, not necessarily undo itself. The way you have to undo, then use another command so the undos themselves become undoable, and redo by undoing the previous undos. That's not how most editors work.
bodhiandpysics1 5y ago
note unix shells allow you to choose your keybindings! It's just as common for people to use vi keys as emacs
- oblio 5y ago
  It's not. I don't read have numbers but my anecdata (of probably hundreds of people across several continents) is that maybe 1% of users switch to vi mode and most revert after a while.
yakubin 5y ago
C-w doesn't work the same. In bash it will delete the word before the cursor. In Emacs it will cut selection (which is always there, just sometimes invisible and then C-w does unpredictable things).
- kmstout 5y ago
  And then there's the experience of using Jupyter's terminals, where you reflexively C-w to delete the last word, but the tab closes. You then reopen the terminal, which has helpfully retained its state--including the word you just tried to delete. Alas.
- rurban 5y ago
  I lost so many windows because of this insane default keybinding.

what a lot of people fail to realise is that emacs key bindings *are* consistent with other tools. Take a look at bash (or the korn shell): begin of line (C-a);

still_grokking 5y ago

That's because GNU ReadLine uses Emacs key-bindings. It's not the other way around.

toolslive 5y ago
I think these key bindings go (at least) back to csh.
- ByteJockey 5y ago
  csh's initial release was 2 years after emacs.

Veen 5y ago

> Not everybody grew up using windows. No, but almost everybody did. Very few people grew up using korn, readline, and emacs.

G3rn0ti 5y ago
But I’d argue learning basic Emacs key bindings gives you the benefit of becoming better on any Linux terminal. Going through the tutorial does not take much time. I think the author is right about the arcane terminology („meta key“, „buffer“, „window“, „frame“ etc) that should be changed and, too, configuring CUA Mode by default to help newbies a bit. I personally prefer using „control c“ and „control v“ for copy and pasting. Mind you if you like to use keyboard macros, you can’t use CUA mode copy/cut/paste bindings in them. That confused me quite a bit as beginner. However, I don’t think I ever got confused by Emacs undo system. It basically does the same thing as in other editors, just the key binding is different.
- Veen 5y ago
  > It basically does the same thing as in other editors, just the key binding is different I think it's the way redo works that's confusing, not necessarily undo itself. The way you have to undo, then use another command so the undos themselves become undoable, and redo by undoing the previous undos. That's not how most editors work.

bodhiandpysics1 5y ago

note unix shells allow you to choose your keybindings! It's just as common for people to use vi keys as emacs

oblio 5y ago
It's not. I don't read have numbers but my anecdata (of probably hundreds of people across several continents) is that maybe 1% of users switch to vi mode and most revert after a while.

yakubin 5y ago

C-w doesn't work the same. In bash it will delete the word before the cursor. In Emacs it will cut selection (which is always there, just sometimes invisible and then C-w does unpredictable things).

kmstout 5y ago
And then there's the experience of using Jupyter's terminals, where you reflexively C-w to delete the last word, but the tab closes. You then reopen the terminal, which has helpfully retained its state--including the word you just tried to delete. Alas.
rurban 5y ago
I lost so many windows because of this insane default keybinding.