Re: [9fans] Emacs

[John Murdie <john@cs.york.ac.uk>]

On 12 Jun, forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk wrote:
>>>>to research the reasoning and theory behind plan9 and acme? I realize it
>> >>is rather different style from traditional UNIX editing as well as the
>>>>Emacs style of editing, ...
>>>>
>>> i'd hope so after all this time. [i said]
>>>
>>read as "I understand it is easy to be preconditioned
>>by confident utilization of UNIX/Emacs style editing
>>over long periods of time, but, there is no reason to
>>dismiss a new environment without first learning how
>
> no, i meant today must be roughly 20 years later, surely,
> if not more.  i'd hope at least the style and ideally the substance
> might have changed a bit in these areas.   i realise that
> some older things turn out to be the best achievable,
> even in computing, and some newer things are
> worse than their predecessors.
> in this case, however, i can't help thinking that the elapsed time
> should provide some opportunity for interesting improvement.
>
> control-meta-shift-elbow!

Or, as someone here calls it: the ``Richard III interface''*, alleging
that one has to contort one's hands and body in order to issue certain
keyboard chorded commands.

* I read that Tudor propaganda portrayed Richard of York, one-time King
  of England, as ``Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time into this
  breathing world, scarce half made up.'' [Shakespeare, Richard III]
--

John A. Murdie
Department of Computer Science
University of York
England