Re: bindings reserved for users

[PPAATT]

> > > From: address@hidden (Richard Stallman)
...
> > > Since such characters are not available
> > > on all terminals, ...
> > > People won't want to use these keys
> > > in major modes or minor modes
> > > meant for general use.
...
> > ... Emacs by default already does bind
> > infamously country-specific keys ...
> > insert ... C-] ... C-[
...
> Date: 4/22/02 1:47:52 AM MDT
> From: address@hidden (Richard Stallman)
...
> None of those keys is country-specific ...
> C-[ and C-] are ASCII characters.
> INSERT is a function key.
...
> ... we were talking about
> country-specific *letters*

Some key assumption here remains as yet unvoiced.

Agreed, [ and ] are chars of ASCII, and Insert is a
word.

But the idea of putting these particular labels on
keys of the keyboard is peculiarly American.  Even
America is divided over the Insert key: keyboards from 
Apple of California USA lack an Insert key.


> C-[ and C-] are ASCII characters.

Do we mean to say ^[ and ^] are in some sense ASCII
chars?


> > in some sense ASCII chars

I think of Emacs as binding keys in terms of what they 
conventionally self-insert.

For example, we don't say end-of-buffer is on
Meta+Shift+Dot.  We say M->.  We don't comment on the
local issue of whether Shift+Dot or some other key
chord conventionally self-inserts >.

This attitude led me to expect I could easily change
the binding of anything local conventions tells me I
can self-insert, like ALL the letters of the local
alphabet.

Somehow this is wrong thinking.

How is labelling a punctuation key ] less peculiarly
American than labelling a letter key ñ is peculiarly
Spanish?

Do we mean to say, to use Emacs, I should first learn
to type all of the ASCII chars, and then all of the
other keys typical of an American IBM PC keyboard?

And anything American that I can't discover how to
type, I should just forget it?  (Except that C-q
quoted-insert will let me insert it by octal code e.g. 
C-q 1 0 1.)


> > infamously country-specific

Part of the infamy is that C compilers see ??( and ??)
as meaning [ and ] precisely because [ and ] do not
appear in the ISO 646 "international" "repertoire" of chars.


Pat LaVarre
http://members.aol.com/plscsi/emacs/emacs-deja-vu.html