3 ms·
> Even if Emacs works internally with the concept of a "point" that is always set to a position in the visible part of a window, text editors evolved over time
by JadeNB 5y ago
> Even if Emacs works internally with the concept of a "point" that is always set to a position in the visible part of a window, text editors evolved over time to adopt the concept of a "cursor" that always stays in place unless the user moves it. It's about time Emacs adopts the concept too, and sets a well-thought default behavior for it.
I'm a Vim user, not an Emacs user, which likely means my opinion isn't worth much; but I think the point I'm about to make is the same.
I use Vim because I like its user interaction paradigm. It is badly out of sync with modern text-editing paradigms, and that's fine. I would be _very_ upset if it started updating to stay relevant. If someone wants an editor that behaves more like modern editors, then they can use a modern editor; and, if they want the best of both worlds, then they can fork Vim and modify it (and there are successful projects doing exactly that). There's no need to modify core Vim to attract new users while alienating old ones.
- vvillena 5y agoEstablishing better defaults in an application is never a bad move. Power users can still customize things to make them behave in whatever way they want, and newbies benefit from a better default setup. This doesn't mean dumbing down the UX. The goal is to provide a better ramp from newbie to power user, so that newcomers can quickly benefit from some of the cool features without having to study for a week before being able to do the most basic things. This is how Vim does it, actually. If you keep it in insert mode, it's like a basic text editor, usually with the terminal itself taking care of basic copy-paste. Eventually, people begin dropping out to normal mode to use more and more commands.