Gmail eats Python

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Rustom Mody <rustompmody at gmail.com>:

> You are being obtuse Marko!
>
> Yeah that 'M-' is what everyone calls Alt can be conveyed in a few
> seconds

Often Alt doesn't work. For example, the stupid GUI thinks it can
intercept some Alt key combinations. Then, it's good to know the ESC
prefix functions as Alt.

Also, in some settings, it is not Alt but some other funny Windows or
Mac keyboard key that serves as Meta. It's all explained at the
beginning of the builtin tutorial (C-h t).

> - What everyone calls a window, emacs calls a frame

Emacs called its windows windows long before there were windowing
systems. For example the command M-x other-window (ordinarily bound to
C-x o) would have to be renamed in a radically backward-incompatible
manner if terminology were changed.

> - And what emacs calls a window, everyone calls a pane

Uh, I believe "pane" is used by GUI programmers only. And the meaning is
not exactly the same as the emacs window.

Thing is, an emacs window is a true window in a windowing system
implemented by emacs itself. I must say, too, that it is much more
comfortable to stick to emacs windows in a single frame than working
with multiple frames.

> - What everyone does with C-x emacs does with C-w (and woe betide if you
> mix that up)

I hate typing outside emacs, where the keys mean wrong things.

> - What everyone calls head (of a list) emacs calls Car (Toyota?)

Now you're inventing things.

> That emacs starts its tutorial showing how to use C-p and C-n for what
> everyone uses arrows is bad enough.

>From said tutorial:

   Moving from screenful to screenful is useful, but how do you move to
   a specific place within the text on the screen?

   There are several ways you can do this. You can use the arrow keys,
   but it's more efficient to keep your hands in the standard position
   and use the commands C-p, C-b, C-f, and C-n. These characters are
   equivalent to the four arrow keys, like this:

   			  Previous line, C-p
   				  :
   				  :
      Backward, C-b .... Current cursor position .... Forward, C-f
   				  :
   				  :
   			    Next line, C-n

There's nothing I would change in this explanation. I do use the arrow
keys occasionally, but I mostly use the C-p et al.

> That the arrow-keys are later found to work quite alright is even
> worse and speaks of a ridiculous attitude

Please read the tutorial passage again.


Marko