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From: Xah Lee <xah...@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs,comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: line-move-visual
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 07:31:25 -0700 (PDT)
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On Jun 15, 4:31=C2=A0pm, Thad Floryan <t...@thadlabs.com> wrote:
> On 6/15/2010 3:45 PM, Xah Lee wrote:
>
>
> > On Jun 15, 3:27 pm, Thad Floryan <t...@thadlabs.com> wrote:
> >> On 6/15/2010 1:42 AM, Uday S Reddy wrote:
>
> >>> On 6/15/2010 7:54 AM, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> >>>> Well, C-f C-n is all you need. =C2=A0I mean, keep C-f pressed until =
the
> >>>> cursor reaches the column you want, you don't even need to count
> >>>> 76. =C2=A0And keep C-n pressed until the cursor reaches the line you=
 want.
> >>> Except that pressing control-key for that long with your pinky is a
> >>> health risk!
> >>> [...]
> >> That's why remapping the [Caps Lock] to be a [Ctrl] is very useful.
>
> > swapping Caps Lock with Ctrl is not good.
>
> > =E2=80=A2 Why You Should Not Swap Caps Lock With Control
> > =C2=A0http://xahlee.org/emacs/swap_CapsLock_Ctrl.html
> > [...]
>
> Your opinion which neither I nor 100,000s of others share -- you stand al=
one.

if we actually do a poll anywhere near scientific, i think majority
will find my opinion the better on, as given in my essay.

> A [Ctrl] to the left of [A] is natural and what I've been using since the
> mid-1960s with absolutely NO problems or RSI whatsoever beginning with a
> TTY ASR33 and continuing with a Datapoint 3300, DEC VT100, Datamedia DT80
> and others along the way to today.

Right, another anecdote from a old man.

The question is not whether you have RSI problem. As i detailed in my
essay, you can be a programer for 40 years coding daily, and never had
RSI problems, yet you can't even touch type. In fact, many programers
can't touch type. Am curious what's a rough percentage. I think
actually more than 50% of those who makes a living by coding cann't
touch type.

> Mapping and using the [Caps Lock] as a [Ctrl] to the immediate left of [A=
]
> is no different than the ["] to the immediate right of [;] re: pinkies.

The question is not whether it is that bad or not that bad. As i
pointed out in my essay, the keyboard itself is badly designed, and
much worse is its precursor the typewriter. Yet, people lived with
typerwriter for generations.

> The (dumb) PC standard of a [Ctrl] key at the lower-left of a keyboard is
> ridiculous and WILL cause pinky problems if one uses Emacs as an editor a=
nd
> bash as a shell.

The question, is whether Swapping Ctrl and Caps Lock key is better
with respect to ergonomics, on a average PC keyboard for the general
public. I've given detailed reasons why i believe that it is worse, in
my essay. To argue fruitfully, you might counter my points.

from my years of experience on this and my observation from the
arguments, i think that actually only a minority really propose that
swapping Caps Lock and Control is a good thing, even that we hear them
online often. It is this minority that keeps spreading baseless info.
Also, i think this minority tends to be older people, say, had
computing career at least as early as back in 1980s or early 1990s.

i think mostly the reason these minority have such view is because in
those days, it is not unusual to find keyboards with Control key on
the Caps Lock position. These people =E2=80=9Cgrew up=E2=80=9D with that. T=
he habit
stuck.

As i have said in my essay, there's a very simple test anyone can do
to see which is better. Let me repeat here:

Now, type the following, but on every 3rd letter hold down Caps Lock
key as if it is Control.

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Do this 100 times or 20 minutes. Really. Do it.

Now, take a break. When you are ready, do it again, but each 3rd
letter press the Control key at the either corners of your keyboard,
and follow my methods described in my esssay.

You can easily determine, which is less tiring or faster.

This simple test can be varied easily. For example, instead of typing
the alphabets in order, you can just grab any sentence. Instead of
holding the modifier every 3rd letter, you can easily create a test so
that it's every nth letter with n being random from 3 to 5. To prepare
the test, YoU caN cAp The letTER tHAt yOu neEd to pReSs thE ModiFier
liKE In thIs senTenCe.

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

aside from the ergonomic matter, i've noticed in my study of
keyboarding, that the choices of many shortcuts in many apps are
adopted to the many aspects of the keyboard hardware of the time in
use by the community. For example, i am quite absolutely certain, that
emacs's keybindings are not simply based on the first letter of
commands, but the qwerty layout's key positions have significant
influence on it. This also applies to the letter choice of unix's
shell commands. Much of this influences of design are unconcious.

i've studied keyboarding quite a lot. Wrote some 40 articles in the
past 10 years from my 20 years of using keyboards, 10 or so keyboard
macros softwares across linux mac classic, os x, Windows;
(resedit keymap, QuicKey, QuickSilver, keybinding.dict, AutoHotKey,
IntelliType, xmodmap, ...), studied key systems in oses (mac classic,
x11, mac os x), mastered shortcuts in tens of apps across oses and
their capabilities at user level settings, touch
type at professional speed in qwerty and dvorak layouts, studied
chinese input systems, studied shortcut notations and key
notations and key macro language notations, studied keyboard soft
layouts (qwerty, dvorak, and international ones), studied keyboard
hardware key layouts,... you can see them here:

=E2=80=A2 All About Keyboards, Keyboard Layouts, Shortcuts, Macros
  http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/keyboarding.html

if keyboard freaks of the world would gather, i think i'd be a high
ranking officer. LOL

  Xah
=E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/

=E2=98=84