on Tue, Dec 25, 2001 at 10:55:10PM -0500, Brian Nelson (nelson@bignachos.com) wrote: > "Karsten M. Self" <kmself@ix.netcom.com> writes: <...> > > I don't dislike emacs keybindings per se (I find most legacy MS > > Windows- centric word processors unusable because I expect to find > > C-a, C-e, C-k, C-p, C-n, C-s, C-r, etc., on them. Abiword's > > supposed to have an emacs mode though I haven't got it to work). > > That said, I find vi a more comfortable editor generally. > > The thing that really bothers me about vi is that it's very > QWERTY-centric and feels very awkward with another layout, like > Dvorak. The most often-used keys are chosen due to their position in > the home row, and are completely meaningless in any other context (for > example, j moves down, k moves up???). I have to agree. I taught myself Dvorak at one point (about ten days to get over the hump), and found it worked relatively well for text editing in, say, a standard word processor. But it absolutely blows chunks with vi. The problem isn't just vi, though. _Most_ Unix commands are based on mnemonic, consonant-heavy, abbreviations: ls, cd, rm, mv, ll, who, vi, ps, mutt, df.... Most of these are balanced between left and right hands, leading to good natural rhythems, many are based on home-row keys, etc. Two of the most annoying Dvorak keytrokes are 'ls' (both right pinky) and 'cd' (right middle top row, right index home left reach). It sounds trivial, but you end up typing these repeatedly, and the motor memory is hard to break. > Emacs' key bindings, however, are not aimed toward any particular layout > but instead are often chosen as abbreviations of English words (C-n = > next line, C-p = previous line, C-s = search, etc.). Since the Dvorak > layout has the most commonly used letters in the home position, these > key bindings tend to feel more natural on Dvorak (at least to me). Interesting, hadn't considered that. Then again, who wants to remember that escape-x-alt-control-left shift-b puts you into super-edit-debug-compile mode? ;-) I've always found the emacs keystrokes to be considerably _anti_-ergonomic. Pessimal, really. Peace. -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Home of the brave http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ Land of the free We freed Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA! http://www.freesklyarov.org Geek for Hire http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html
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