Re: Emacs learning curve

[Tassilo Horn]

On Thursday 22 July 2010 14:18:40 Lennart Borgman wrote:

> > And we would need to define new guidelines for modes.  These
> > recommendations are also in conflict with CUA:
> >
> > ,----[ (info "(elisp)Major Mode Conventions") ]
> > |    * The key sequences bound in a major mode keymap should usually
> > |      start with `C-c', followed by a control character, a digit, or `{',
> > |      `}', `<', `>', `:' or `;'.  The other punctuation characters are
> > |      reserved for minor modes, and ordinary letters are reserved for
> > |      users.
> > `----
> >
> > ,----[ (info "(elisp)Keymaps and Minor Modes") ]
> > |    The key sequences bound in a minor mode should consist of `C-c'
> > | followed by one of `.,/?`'"[]\|~!#$%^&*()-_+='.  (The other punctuation
> > | characters are reserved for major modes.)
> > `----
> >
> > But since old emacs users and users happy with the emacs way would
> > like to stick to the default bindings, we would have to somehow
> > invend conventions that fit for both Emacs and CUAmacs.  I'm pretty
> > sure that's near to impossible if you want to preserve a rest of
> > mnemonics and consistency.
> 
> Aren't your description rather accurate also without making CUA mode
> default?

No.  New users don't have configs they need to change, and existing
modes already stick to these (non-CUA-friendly) conventions.

> (Except for swapping new and old users?)

I wanted to say, that making CUA default would involve replacing binding
conventions and changing gazillions of bindings accordingly.

> This is what I mean with that CUA mode currently is a second citizen.

Well, that's true.  But IMO it's impossible to have two first class
keybinding schemes.

Bye,
Tassilo