Emacs's M-‹key› Notation vs Alt+‹key› Notation

There's now a thread, currently at 50 posts, at gnu.emacs.help :
http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.e...1fcfd40d1f4ca/

The thread got into discussion about using Alt+‹key› notation instead
of emacs's M-‹key› notation.

as a side effect of the thread, i wrote a detailed account for my
argument here:

http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization_meta_key.html

plain text version follows:
----------------------------------

Emacs's M-‹key› Notation vs Alt+‹key› Notation

Xah Lee, 2008-07

Here're some reason i think emacs should adopt the Alt+‹key› and Ctrl
+‹key› notation throughout its documentation. (as opposed to emacs's
M-‹key› and C-‹key› notation)

UNIVERSALLY UNDERSTOOD

The Alt+‹key› or Ctrl+‹key› notation is universal among Windows and
Linux. They account for about 95% of computers used word wide. Note
that the word “Alt� and “Ctrl� are the exact labels printed on the
Keys of PC Keyboards. PC Keyboards has probably more than 99% of
market share.

IDENTICAL TO KEY'S LABEL

Using a notation that contains the actual label on keyboard's keys is
much easier to understand. A beginning computer user, can read the
“Ctrl+‹key›� notation and figure out which keys to press. Emacs's
notation of “M-‹key›� and “C-‹key›� requires a learning step, even for
experienced programers. Even though it is a minor one, but learning
steps add up the complexity.

(Apple's computers, which account for about %4 marke share today, also
use a notation where the name or symbol appears on the labels of Apple
keyboard's keys exactly. (OSX's documentation uses the notaton
“Command-‹key›� and “Option-‹key›�. Application's menus shows them as
“⌘‹key›� and “⌥‹key›�. Both the word “Command� and symbol “⌘� appear
on the key's label, same for “Option� and “⌥�.)

META IS ALT IN PRACTICE

By default on all major OSes in use (Windows and Linux and OSX), emacs
maps its Meta to Alt key. So, practically speaking, the Meta key is
the Alt key. (Aquamacs, perhaps the most widely used emacs distro on
OSX, by default has Alt for Meta.)

KEYBOARDS DON'T HAVE META KEY TODAY

The Meta key was one of the modifier key on obsolete keyboards used by
lisp machines in the 1980s. (for photos and detail, see: Why Emacs's
Keyboard Shortcuts Are Painful)

There is practically no keyboard today that has the Meta key. Sun
Microsystem's keyboard has a key labeled with a diamond “◆�. Sun's
official documentation refers to this key as Meta key. (e.g. search
http://docs.sun.com/ on “Meta key�.) Sun's keyboards have amarket
share perhaps less than 0.01%.

For photos and more commentary on Sun's keyboard, see Computer
keyboards Gallery.

MISC FACTS

Historically, a “Meta+‹key›� shortcut in emacs can also be invoked by
“Esc ‹key›� or “Ctrl+[ ‹key›�. The design was that way mostly because
at the time, many terminals do not have or support the Meta key, and
Terminal is a primary application in computer use in the 1980s. The
other reason is that, in emacs's implementation, the Meta+‹key› is
simply a ASCII control character sequence. Today, perhaps all
terminal↗, console↗, Command line interface↗ apps support Meta as Alt
either by default or in a preference setting.

The ability of pressing Esc for Meta might be still useful for some
people. Users who needed that feature could easily read about it in
emacs doc. (I myself used “Esc ‹key›� exclusively during 1998-2004,
mostly because it was a one-brainless solution that works on all
telnet apps regardless of hardware, OS, or setup, and i frequently
need to use different machine, OS, or remote servers.)

A argument from user interface perspective, is that multiple
insignificant choices or options are not good because it increases
complexity and causes the user to sidetrack their focus on tasks. KDE
and Gnome, solved this problem for linuxes by adopting wholesale
Microsoft Window's interface starting about 1998. (before KDE and
Gnome, GUI apps on unix use a variety of “Windows Managers�that has
incompatible User Interfaces, each claiming superiority.)

Note: Whether to use the “M-‹key›� or “Alt+‹key›� notation has little
to do with “Esc ‹key›� feature.

PS Note that Microsoft Windows used to use the Alt-‹key› notation.
Only in recent years they changed the minus sign to plus sign.
Arguably, this is a good change because the plus sign better indicates
key combination.

------------

Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄

No, thank you. I'm fine calling the M-x commands "emacs", not
"altex". Got a ring to it.

On Jul 30, 12:13*am, "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The thread got into discussion about using Alt+‹key› notation instead
> of emacs's M-‹key› notation.

Do people really discuss this kind of trivia? get a life.
Alternatively, if you want to actually argue about it, note that Ctrl-
x is twice a many keystrokes as C-x, and Alt-x is almost twice as many
as M-x.

On Jul 29, 5:30 pm, Tim Bradshaw <tfb+goo...@tfeb.org> wrote:
> On Jul 30, 12:13 am, "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The thread got into discussion about using Alt+‹key› notation instead
> > of emacs's M-‹key› notation.
>
> Do people really discuss this kind of trivia? get a life.

LOL.

Do people really discuss all sort of trivia in comp.lang.lisp like
where lisp's parens should be placed in source code? Get a life??

> Alternatively, if you want to actually argue about it, note that Ctrl-
> x is twice a many keystrokes as C-x, and Alt-x is almost twice as many
> as M-x.

Yeah. u should use like u = you n c = see n r = are n n = and.
Humanity, let's save keystrokes!

Saving keystroke isn't the main issue about it. Good point to bring it
up though.

I hope i don't have now to start patiently answering every post here
too. Quite tasking on my nerves.

Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄

In article
<7ab50623-d91a-4dd5-a5c9-a1f2ec6058bd@z6g2000pre.googlegroups.com>,
"xahlee@gmail.com" <xahlee@gmail.com> wrote:

> Here're some reason i think emacs should adopt the Alt+ﾜkey� and Ctrl
> +ﾜkey� notation throughout its documentation. (as opposed to emacs's
> M-ﾜkey� and C-ﾜkey� notation)

What does this have to do with Lisp or functional programming? Please
don't cross-post articles that have nothing to do with programming, and
are just about Emacs.

--
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***

Tim Bradshaw wrote:
> On Jul 30, 12:13 am, "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The thread got into discussion about using Alt+‹key› notation instead
>> of emacs's M-‹key› notation.
>
> Do people really discuss this kind of trivia? get a life.
> Alternatively, if you want to actually argue about it, note that Ctrl-
> x is ...

Oh, cool! The long sought key chord to put Emacs into "argument mode"
where it would demand to know why I was rolling the dice by coding
nconc!!!...

.....twice a many keystrokes as C-x, and Alt-x is almost twice as many
> as M-x.




kenny

Xah Lee wrote:
> > Here're some reason i think emacs should adopt the Alt+ﾜkey� and Ctrl
> > +ﾜkey� notation throughout its documentation. (as opposed to emacs's
> > M-ﾜkey� and C-ﾜkey� notation)


Barry Margolin wrote:

> What does this have to do with Lisp or functional programming? Please
> don't cross-post articles that have nothing to do with programming, and
> are just about Emacs.

Dear Barry,

I wrote a essay, posted to comp.lang.lisp, 8 years ago, titled
“Philosophies of Netiquette�, available at
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/w...etiquette.html

in that article, i discussed 2 styles of using newsgroups. One is
conversational, where people post freely and sloppily, all considered
good as long as they are polite and sing alone with the group's
political agenda, such as promoting lisp in comp.lang.lisp. The other
style, judges post by inherent quality, but does not necessarily
follows the orthodox views.

For example, by the conversational style philosophy, anyone who speak
negatively of C in comp.lang.lisp is ok or good. But if the same
negative criticisms of C and post to comp.lang.c, you are considered a
so-called troll, regardless the inherent value of your post.

Here's a plain text version of the essay.
-------------------------

Philosophies of Netiquette

Xah Lee, 2000-03-20

There are many philosophies toward netiquette. The most common treat
newsgroups as a conversation medium. Thus you see “me too�sand “thank
you�s and a plethora of one-sentence trivia and Question & Answer
slipslops that are valueless and meaningless to practically all except
a few people for a brief duration. As examples, comp.lang.lisp
dwellers [censored] and [censored]'s posts are typical of this style.
Then at the other extreme is the relatively rare Victorian propensity
where each post is a gem of literature carefully crafted and
researched for a entire century of readers to appreciate and archive.
Xah, Erik Naggum, and [censored]'s posts are exemplary of this style,
to name a few acquaintances like myself.

The conversationalists emphasize the notions of utility and community.
Utilities can include the exchanging of opinions, getting questions
answered, chatting, bounding a community, and advancing the group's
interests. (and trampling conflicting interests from other
communities. (e.g. “it's categorically unacceptable to bash lisp in
lisp group�.)) A good post in the conversationalist's eyes is
basically a post that makes everyone in the group happy. The Rococo
style posters are in general more scholarly and emphasize on quality
and value. The intrinsic quality of a post of the Rococo stylists can
be judged on content and presentation aspects. The presentation part
essentially means the poster's writing skill and effort she puts into
posts. This fact is not highbrowism because communication using
newsgroups are done in written form: wrote and read; not spoke and
heard. The criterions for judging a post's content are essentially the
same as that of a scholar's work in science or humanitarian
diciplines, roughly that of correctness, originality, or artistry. In
this school of thought, it is ok for example to bash lisp in
comp.lang.lisp if the post has sound arguments, original ideas,
thought provoking, or otherwise has value (¡very funny!). Whether a
post is on-topic is less important here because the focus is on truth
and enduring quality, not sheerly bending over for the group agenda.

The two contrasting models of posting can be realized sharply by
reading a newsgroup archive of a particular poster. Go to a newsgroup
archive such as dejanews.com and search for your favorite poster. If
you find a huge quantity of terse posts that is tiring, boring, have
little content, and in general require you to carefully follow the
entire thread to understand it, then you know you've bumped into a
conversationalist. On the other hand, if you find posts being usually
lengthy and thoughtful and fairly complete by itself, then you've met
a scholarly mannered poster that is probably skilled at writing as
well. Please note that the conversational mannered posters are not
necessarily lousy writers, uncultured, or unappreciated, but usually
are.

If there must a purpose to this post, then it is that i urge those
conversationalists who insist on their brand of morality of netiquette
to at least double the time they spend on composing messages so that
their posts might have more value in scholar's eyes, if they are
incapable or otherwise unwilling to broaden their minds into the
philosophies of netiquette. I'm here expanding their brain from the
mundane notion of signal/noise to revolutionary value/signal idea. You
fucking buckets of morons.

---------------------------------

So, by the conversational philosophy, which actually is the philosophy
most tech geekers unconsciously subscribe to, your post, consisting of
29 words in one paragraph, about how my post has nothing to to with
lisp, is ok or good.

However, in my value-based, Rococo style philosophy, your chiding is
one of the worst post. It happens in newsgroups about everyday.
Example: “You are offtopic!�, “you are kill filed!�, “Troll!!�, “Don't
feed the troll!�.

Can you see, that in my eyes, how your post is so boring and
valueless? I mean, today comp.lang.lisp is bombarded by machine
generated spams. About maybe 30% of posts are such spams in this
month. If you are so concerned about posting quality, shouldn't you
spend your energy to do something about this social problem instead?

Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄

On Jul 30, 1:39*am, "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Do people really discuss all sort of trivia in comp.lang.lisp like
> where lisp's parens should be placed in source code? Get a life??

I believe they still may do that. Also whining on about how they
can't use Lisp because x, for x being, frankly, almost anything.

All these people should get lives: quit whining about trivia and just
DO SOMETHING. I did: it turns out not to involve Lisp, which is sad,
but it sure is better than discussing indentation or the names of
keystrokes.

On Jul 31, 7:13 am, Tim Bradshaw <tfb+goo...@tfeb.org> wrote:
> On Jul 30, 1:39 am, "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Do people really discuss all sort of trivia in comp.lang.lisp like
> > where lisp's parens should be placed in source code? Get a life??
>
> I believe they still may do that. Also whining on about how they
> can't use Lisp because x, for x being, frankly, almost anything.
>
> All these people should get lives: quit whining about trivia and just
> DO SOMETHING. I did: it turns out not to involve Lisp, which is sad,
> but it sure is better than discussing indentation or the names of
> keystrokes.

LOL.

So you did get a life? What? Second Life? LOL.

Btw, if you joined Second Life, let's meet. I'm Xah Toll there. We can
voice chat about the importance of functional programing in humanity's
future.

In fact, there is a lisp group in Second Life. I don't remember his
name now, but few months back he's telling me to post in
comp.lang.lisp about it. (obviously he's not gonna do it and seeing
how i more fit for the job.) Also, i have created a emacs group in
Second Life too.

(one time i mentioned about Second Life's lisp group in freenode.net's
#lisp channel then promptly got banned (luckly, it was temp ban). LOL.
y'know how male society is... )

If you haven't heard of Second Life, have a look here:
http://xahlee.org/sl/index.html

Highly recommended even if just for a tour. It is, in some inevitable
sense, how technology is heading towards.

Whenever i mention Second Life to some programing geeks, their first
reaction is “thank you, i have a life�. Quite silly. I can't emphasize
enough, that Second Life, despite it's funny name, is a major
technological impact on human society, just as the internet was. I've
been in Second Life daily for the past 1.5 year. Originally i was
there to explore the potential of building geometry visualization, but
got distracted quickly.

(for geometry in Second Life, see for example:
http://xahlee.org/sl/sl_math.html
and
http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourk...ng/secondlife/
)

Daily, i literally talk with (voice or text) people from Europe,
Australia, Japan. And there is all sort of incredible social things
you learn in such a virtual congregation. In fact, now many
universities (e.g. UC Davis) has courses on Second Life including
programing courses on their language, and major tech corps has a
presences (e.g. IBM, AMD...).

We, are the lovers of technology. Though, sometimes i am surprised by
how little your guys know about its relation to society. I don't mean
average professional coders, who are usually dumb, just doing a day
job, and have no interest in math or programing langs really. But i
mean you guys, who hog around comp.lang.* groups and tech geek blogs n
slashdots all day.

have a look at top website by Alexa for example:
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sit...obal&lang=none

Yahoo and google and msn are top 5, old news. But look at things like
YouTube. Basically in just a couple of years it climbed to the top.
Note that any of these, will have building-sized serve rooms. And,
when i see some of you sneer at YouTube with its javascript and Flash,
or sometimes snearing at Wikipedia (currently ranked 7) , thinking
that these are for kids or whatnot, i can see how much totally
ignorant of what's actually influencing the human society.

Also, note that Facebook, Myspace, Blogger.com, orkut, these are also
top 10. These are social network sites. Most are often sneered by tech
geekers here. You really just have to take 30 minutes to think about
the significance of these sites with respect to the world's affairs,
the impact they are doing.

I'm no card-carrying sociologist, but i can tell you roughly on the
ball-park, that Youtube alone, its impact on cultural exchange and
understanding, perhaps out weight all the culteral exchange works and
programs and education done in the past decade.

Also, note that YouPorn.com is ranked #35. Perhaps you don't know, but
youporn.com is basically a website like youtube, where people can
upload vids, but porn.

In the past, there are many major controversial studies on human
sexuality. e.g. Kinsey and Masters & Johnson, involving funds,
interviws, painstaking research... and at those times, their results
are controversial, banned, etc. (gays are illegal and jailed. and only
in recent decade, ass fucking or cock sucking is officially legal in
most states) But look at youporn today! Such a site basically makes
past human sexualogy research like kid's guess-work. And look at how
our society has progressed and opened up, by what? By Communication!
The _communication_ that the technology brought us. Mostly the
internet!

well i don't know why am i writing this... i guess one thing leads to
another. You tech geekers, have a look at society! Stop your killfile
drivel and spam-filtering setup proudness or your how-you-should-
format-your-code, or whatever incredibly blind and stupid thought you
are doing daily.

Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄

"xahlee@gmail.com" <xahlee@gmail.com> writes:

[...]

> Whenever i mention Second Life to some programing geeks, their first
> reaction is “thank you, i have a life�. Quite silly.

[...]

> Daily, i literally talk with (voice or text) people from Europe,
> Australia, Japan. And there is all sort of incredible social things
> you learn in such a virtual congregation.

The social things you presumably have learnt there are indeed
incredible.

> We, are the lovers of technology. Though, sometimes i am surprised by
> how little your guys know about its relation to society. I don't mean
> average professional coders, who are usually dumb, just doing a day
> job, and have no interest in math or programing langs really. But i
> mean you guys, who hog around comp.lang.* groups and tech geek blogs n
> slashdots all day.

Whether that's a sign of intelligence is debatable. The dolphins would
likely disagree.

--
David Kastrup