3 ms·
> took me maybe 15 years of using the terminal every single day to get used to using Ctrl+A to go to the beginning of the line (or Ctrl+E for the end). And the
by eviks 2y ago
> took me maybe 15 years of using the terminal every single day to get used to using Ctrl+A to go to the beginning of the line (or Ctrl+E for the end).
And the curse of bad defaults strikes again (daily).
After the realization that this is a weird default you don't train yourself for 15 years, but change it to your comfortable/common keybinds!
- jorams 2y agoI wonder what terminal that is, because the Home and End keys, which I'm pretty sure are the expected alternatives, work fine in every terminal for me on Linux.
- a1o 2y agoI have the same experience.
- cellularmitosis 2y agoI feel like you're being willfully obtuse here. I can't remember the last time I used a laptop which had Home / End keys. Edit: actually I do remember -- it was an HP ProBook from 2011.
- userbinator 2y agoI can't remember the last time I used a laptop without Home/End keys. Among them are a Dell from 2002, an IBM from 2006, another Dell from 2018, and a Lenovo from 2019. ...and here's one from 2024 that still does: https://www.storagereview.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/StorageReview-Dell-Latitude-9450-08.jpg https://www.storagereview.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Sto...
- arp242 2y agoAlmost every (Windows) laptop has them, although they do all use their own unique (IMHO often awkward) layout.
- jorams 2y agoFor the complaint to make any sense in the first place there needs to be an expected alternative way to go back to the beginning and end of a line. Otherwise it would be "it took me maybe 15 years to get used to being able to go to the beginning or end of a line in one keystroke". The two such options I'm aware of are Home/End (on macbooks I believe that is Fn+arrow keys) and Ctrl-a/Ctrl-e. What alternative key combinations do you expect to work for the purpose?
- cellularmitosis 2y agoI think I didn't communicate that well. What I saw was: jvns: I didn't know you could go to the beginning of the line you: But you could have just pressed the Home key The obvious answer is: jvns doesn't have a Home key.
- jmb99 2y agoThere are many keyboards without home and end keys.
- binary132 2y agoIf you were an Emacs user you would find this to be a good and useful default. ;)
- nine_k 2y agoThese defaults are not bad if you use Emacs :) Or if you use macOS that (gasp) supports the very same ^A and ^E shortcuts in all edit controls.
- eviks 2y agoThey are, you just remap them in emacs and Mac as well There is no point in suffering for decades just because some bad defaults exist elsewhere
- skydhash 2y agoRemaps Capslock to Ctrl and it will make a lot of sense. Other heavily used shortcuts are Alt+d, Alt+Backspace, and Alt+Left|Right.
- eviks 2y agoStill wouldn't, why would you use your weakest finger in the bad sideways motion for such a frequent operation???
- skydhash 2y agoIt's usually the weight of my whole hand. I touch type, but my hands are usually tilted to the exterior. So I hit keys like Enter, Capslock, Shift, with the side instead of the tip of my fingers. And I don't mind sliding my whole hands if I'm going to use it repeatedly.
- eviks 2y agoSide vs tip doesn't come close to tipping the balance And the last part is backwards - you don't need to use it repeatedly, there are much better alternatives, so you could just as well not mind not doing it
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y agoI'd rather press left or right arrow keys 40 times than pollute my brain with yet another keystroke to remember.