The Modernization of Emacs

[Bjorn Borud]

[Twisted <twisted0n3 at gmail.com>]
| 
| Given that in its out-of-the-box configuration it's well-nigh unusable
| without a printed-out "cheat sheet" of some kind, of the sort that
| were supposed to have died out in the 80s, getting it customized poses
| something of a catch-22 for anyone trying to get started using it.

indeed, not adhering to the half a dozen keybinding and menu
conventions that most newer applications use on OSX and Windows today
is not ideal UI design, but it doesn't really present that much of a
problem either; so it ends up being a non-issue to any regular user.
(actually, it isn't merely a case of changing some keybindings and
names -- the problem is that Emacs has a bunch of concepts that are
not easily mapped to trivial editor semantics, so it would be hard to
change without causing further confusion).

Emacs isn't really meant for the casual user and there are editors far
better suited for those who think spending an afternoon learning it is
too much.  (compare to VI or VIM, which probably takes even a bit
longer to grasp, but which is beautifully practical once you
understand how it works.  there's this good tech-talk given by Bram
Moolenaar available¹ on about text editing and VIM).


¹) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2538831956647446078

-Bjørn