Re: [Sheflug] vi, emacs, sharp sticks

[Will Newton <nospam [at] misconception.org.uk>]

On Tue, 28 Nov 2000, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> C-w is kill-region, usually, and that's supposed to be mnemonic from
> command-line editing.  Paste is C-y, for "yank", and I believe that's
> the same in vi.  C-d is delete-char-forward, same "delete" as vi's

No it isn't, it's the opposite. yy copies, dd cuts, p pastes. I can deal
with that better than C-w cuts C-y pastes and their doesn't appear to be
a key for plain old copy (I know, cut-then-paste, but that's two keys).

> delete line.  In general, Emacs keybindings are supposed to be
> mnemonic by initial.  C-z is suspend, as in the shell.  The X key is
> reserved from eXtended commands, C-x being a prefix for multiple
> keystrokes, and M-x allowing you to specify commands by name.  Etc,
> etc.

The C-x bit is about all that really seems logical. Maybe a bit too much
historical cruft, not enough clear thinking. Still, I do prefer it to vi.
:)
Also emacs interface needs a LOT of work IMO. It has a lot of power but
the interface barely exposes a fraction.

> What the hell are CUA (MSFT) keybindings supposed to be mnemonic for?
> Alt-V = paste?  Alt-X = cut?

Strangely they happen to be close to the amiga key bindings which were
(AFAICR) A-C for copy, A-V for paste and A-X for cut. Don't know why.
A-X makes sense as in X = kill. Maybe you could say A-K would be better,
but X is not too bad. C for copy, now there's an idea. V? Not sure.

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