modernization of emacs - lisp

On 28 Okt., 04:35, namekuseijin <namekusei...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It's one of the most ancient pieces of software still in active use
> today. In this timeline, CUA trends have come and gone, but emacs and
> vi have been thoroughly consistent with their own way of doing
> things.

Begin willing to learn is not something you can be proud of.

> And very productive at it, a very good reason for their
> continued usage.

Doubt that. But one of the symphoms of idiots is that they refuse to
learn.

On 27 out, 21:10, llothar <llot...@web.de> wrote:
> Doubt that. But one of the symphoms of idiots is that they refuse to
> learn.

indeed. This can be said of people unwilling to learn the emacs way
and wanting it to be another notepad...

dear:

Man, i couldn't fathom how you arrived at the idea that i want to make
emacs into a notepad ways. (perhaps you are thinking alone the lines
of “Oh no, i don't want emacs to be dumb'd down�?)

O, regarding my statement about how easy it is to create a shortcut
set for emacs that is more efficient than emacs's ways, please see:

Read: Why Emacs's Keyboard Shortcuts Are Painful
http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_kb_shortcuts_pain.html

O, It's is fairly long (1.8 k words.) As a summary i'll show the
subsection names:

• The Swapping of Control and Meta Modifiers
• The Choice Of Keys
• Outdated Commands
• No Employment of the Shift Key
• A Flaw in Keybinding Policy
• Epilogue: Failure to Change

Now, i happend to actually designed a shortcut system for emacs this
year, having put too much thougt on this. It comes with a elisp code
you can put in your .emacs and try.

• Acrostic Ergonomic Keyboard Shortcut Layout For Emacs
http://xahlee.org/emacs/ergonomic_emacs_keybinding.html

Xah
xah@xahlee.org
∑ http://xahlee.org/


On Oct 27, 2:45 pm, namekuseijin <namekusei...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 27 out, 06:18, Xah Lee <x...@xahlee.org> wrote:

> If we take careful consideration on creating a keyboard shortcut
> system for emacs, it is not difficult to create a system that is
> superior in some pure technical sense than the emacs's shortcut
> system.

you're insane.  Yes, the reasons for emacs being the way it is are
historical:  it were originally all but a bunch of macros and
keybindings for an older editor.  Since then, the number of macros and
keybindings added have grown immensely and in a geeky ad-hoc way.
Now, trying to make sense out of it all in a notepad way is insane if
you ask me...

> (Since
> about 2000, linuxes are in a frenzied race to copy whole-sale of
> Microsoft Windows's user interface ( KDE↗, GNOME↗) tryingto make
> itself easy-to-use.)

GNOME actually tries to copy the model for Windows:  the Macintosh
GUI.

On 27 out, 23:58, Xah Lee <x...@xahlee.org> wrote:
> Man, i couldn't fathom how you arrived at the idea that i want to make
> emacs into a notepad ways. (perhaps you are thinking alone the lines
> of "Oh no, i don't want emacs to be dumb'd down"?)

from here:
"Today, most commonly used keyboard shortcuts have been somewhat
informally standardized. For example, C/X/V is for Copy/Cut/Paste. O
is for Open. S is for Save, Shift-S is for Save As. P is for Print. F
is for Find/Search. Tab is for next, Shift tab for previous."

It's insane to try to fit emacs and vi to current standards: they are
worlds on their own. It's like trying to convert a 90 year old
faithful catholic to protestantism. It leads nowhere and will make a
lot of people used to the old paradigms angry at you.

BTW, CTRL+F only works if you're prepared to implement a search dialog
with all the options that kind of thing requires. Emacs/Vi were made
with technical people in mind, people who hopefully know about regular
expressions and would find the dialog and checkboxes about as
redundant as confirmation boxes... what about reverse search? is
there a "standard" modern keybinding for that too? Oh, of course not,
reverse search needs you to mark a checkbox in the dialog, silly me...

now:
"Outdated Commands

A significant portion of emacs's major shortcuts ... are mapped to
commands that are almost never used today ... M-k (kill-sentence)).
Most programer who have used emacs for years never use these commands"

Define "most programmers". If by that you mean "most clueless emacs
users using it like little more than notepad++", I agree. These are
the same who don't know emacs has more semantically significant
textual units than just word and line, like the sentence indeed...

Xah Lee <xah@xahlee.org> writes:
>
> Q: Emacs's ways are technically superior. It should not change.
>


of course it is superior, and only pervies would want to change it

> A: Emac's user interface, when compared to modern software
> application's user interface, is complex and unusual,

no, it's simple and beautiful, as denied by fools only.
usuality is worthless, as it is defined by mobs like Bill Gates.

> however, there's
> no basis whatsoever of it being actually a superior design with
> regards to any sensible metrics. (in fact, much of emacs's user
> interface are due to historical reasons. That is, how computers are in
> 1980s.)
>

no, they are due to eternally valid reasons

> For example, let's consider emacs's system of keyboard shortcuts. For
> a keyboard shortcut system, we might judge its quality based on
> several aspects. Here are some examples of consideration:
>
> * Is it easy to learn?


it's trivial to learn

> (is it familiar to most people?


the mass of people is irrelevant,
as quality ain't quantity

> Is it easy
> to remember?)

totally easy

> * Is it ergonomic? (Are most frequently used commands's keyboard
> shortcuts easy to type?

all commands are easy to type

> Are more frequently used commands have easier
> to type shortcuts than less frequently used commands?)
> * Are most frequently used commands all have a keyboard shortcut?
> * Is the shortcut system somehow consistent and extensible?
>
> Emacs's keyboard shortcuts system, is good only with respect to the
> last item.

the last item is the only one that counts anyways

> Emacs keyboard shortcuts are perhaps one of the most
> difficult to learn among software,

all lies, they are totally trivial to learn


and is also one of the most
> difficult to remember. The worst aspect of emacs's keyboard shortcuts,
> is that it is ergonomically painful. (Many emacs-using programer
> celebrities have injured their hands with emacs. (e.g. Richard
> Stallman↗, Jamie Zawinski↗), and emacs's Ctrl and Meta combinations
> are most cited as the major turn-off to potential users among
> programers)

they only turn off unworthy ones


Klaus Schilling

Some entity, AKA Klaus Schilling <schilling.klaus@web.de>,
wrote this mindboggling stuff:
(selectively-snipped-or-not-p)

> no, there will never be any editor better than the GNU Emacs
>
> >
> > Just hire a secretary to do the scribling , that is much easier.
>
> The GNU Emacs is for serious editing, not scribbling, unlike Notepad

Yes, ofcourse one should never let hired help do important stuff indeed ;-)

Cor


--
Alle schraifvauden zijn opzettelijk, teneinde ieder lafaard de kans te
geven over spelling te zeuren in plaats van in te gaan op de inhoud.
(defvar My-Computer '((OS . "GNU/Emacs") (IPL . "GNU/Linux")))
http://www.clsnet.nl/mail.php

On Oct 27, 8:26 pm, namekuseijin <namekusei...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 27 out, 23:58, Xah Lee <x...@xahlee.org> wrote:
>
> > Man, i couldn't fathom how you arrived at the idea that i want to make
> > emacs into a notepad ways. (perhaps you are thinking alone the lines
> > of "Oh no, i don't want emacs to be dumb'd down"?)
>
> from here:
> "Today, most commonly used keyboard shortcuts have been somewhat
> informally standardized. For example, C/X/V is for Copy/Cut/Paste. O
> is for Open. S is for Save, Shift-S is for Save As. P is for Print. F
> is for Find/Search. Tab is for next, Shift tab for previous."
>
> It's insane to try to fit emacs and vi to current standards: they are
> worlds on their own. It's like trying to convert a 90 year old
> faithful catholic to protestantism. It leads nowhere and will make a
> lot of people used to the old paradigms angry at you.

Dear namekuseijin,

(is that your real name? My legal name is Xah Lee.)

what do you mean exactly by turning emacs to Notepad?

in my article "The Modernization of Emacs" at
http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html

can you point out specifically, which part is about "turning emacs to
Notepad", and what does it mean exactly?

One of my proposal is that emacs should by default have its CUV mode
on. I quote from my article:

«· Have cua-mode on by default. (This achieve 3 things: (1) Cut/Copy/
Paste has shortcuts with x/c/v keys; (2) Text selections are
highlighted; (3) Typing while a region is selected will delete/over-
ride it.)»

You pointed out a passage in another of my article:
"Why Emacs's Keyboard Shortcuts Are Painful"
http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_kb_shortcuts_pain.html

that indicates, to me, that my suggestion for emacs to turn on CUV
mode by default consitute "turning emacs to Notepad".

If so, i don't think there is a basis that if emacs adopted some
modern standard shortcuts, would "turn emacs into Notepad". By the
phrase "turning emacs into Notepad", i assume you mean generally in
some way that emacs would be changed so it becomes Microsoft Notepad-
like and resulting in a less-powerful emacs? Do you mean, that by
turning on CUV by default, will cause emacs to lose some of its
capabilities?

I don't want to put my words into your mouth. But i presume it is
reasonable to assume that you took my article wrongly. I think it is
worth your time to read it in some detail if you are interested in
this subject. On the other hand, if you did read the article, and
really is concerned about it it "turning emacs into Notepad", i would
appreciate hearing your feedback in more precision.

Thanks for your time.

Xah
xah@xahlee.org
http://xahlee.org/

On Oct 27, 8:26 pm, namekuseijin <namekusei...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 27 out, 23:58, Xah Lee <x...@xahlee.org> wrote:
>
> > Man, i couldn't fathom how you arrived at the idea that i want to make
> > emacs into a notepad ways. (perhaps you are thinking alone the lines
> > of "Oh no, i don't want emacs to be dumb'd down"?)
>
> from here:
> "Today, most commonly used keyboard shortcuts have been somewhat
> informally standardized. For example, C/X/V is for Copy/Cut/Paste. O
> is for Open. S is for Save, Shift-S is for Save As. P is for Print. F
> is for Find/Search. Tab is for next, Shift tab for previous."
>
> It's insane to try to fit emacs and vi to current standards: they are
> worlds on their own. It's like trying to convert a 90 year old
> faithful catholic to protestantism. It leads nowhere and will make a
> lot of people used to the old paradigms angry at you.
>
> BTW, CTRL+F only works if you're prepared to implement a search dialog
> with all the options that kind of thing requires. Emacs/Vi were made
> with technical people in mind, people who hopefully know about regular
> expressions and would find the dialog and checkboxes about as
> redundant as confirmation boxes... what about reverse search? is
> there a "standard" modern keybinding for that too? Oh, of course not,
> reverse search needs you to mark a checkbox in the dialog, silly me...
>
> now:
> "Outdated Commands
>
> A significant portion of emacs's major shortcuts ... are mapped to
> commands that are almost never used today ... M-k (kill-sentence)).
> Most programer who have used emacs for years never use these commands"
>
> Define "most programmers". If by that you mean "most clueless emacs
> users using it like little more than notepad++", I agree. These are
> the same who don't know emacs has more semantically significant
> textual units than just word and line, like the sentence indeed...

Xah Lee wrote:
«long discussion about modernization of emacs
http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html
»

«· Have cua-mode on by default. (This achieve 3 things: (1) Cut/Copy/
Paste has shortcuts with x/c/v keys; (2) Text selections are
highlighted; (3) Typing while a region is selected will delete/over-
ride it.)»

Cesar Rabak wrote:
«Why so much ado about? Just have cua-mode set in your .emacs file1»

Hi, thanks for the reply. I think i happened to have answered this one
in the FAQ section of the article.
See http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html

near buttom. I quote:
«
Q: Why don't you make these changes yourself? It is easy.

A: The issue is not a individual's convenience. Let's say you lobby
for greener planet. Then somebody retorts: “why don't you just plant
more trees in your backyard?�.
»

Thanks again for the suggestion.

Xah
xah@xahlee.org
∑ http://xahlee.org/

Xah Lee escreveu:
> On Oct 27, 8:26 pm, namekuseijin <namekusei...@gmail.com> wrote:
[snipped]

[snipped]

> «· Have cua-mode on by default. (This achieve 3 things: (1) Cut/Copy/
> Paste has shortcuts with x/c/v keys; (2) Text selections are
> highlighted; (3) Typing while a region is selected will delete/over-
> ride it.)»

Why so much ado about? Just have cua-mode set in your .emacs file1