Re: a ergonomic emacs keyboard shortcut layout

On Aug 11, 2007, at 2:44 PM, David Reitter wrote:
«If you'd like to help, given the knowledge gained from your use case  
study, I suggest you help port something like Aquamacs to other  
systems (that is, Windows and GNU/Linux).»

egads. I don't think i can do that. Though it is probably a necessary  
step to get GNU actually to adopt to such a thought.  I do think it's  
something emacs desperately needed, and Aquamacs is spearheading it.  
As i learn more about elisp down the road, maybe we could work out  
sometime together.

i think emacs desperately needs to be modernized in many mundane  
aspects.  I spend a lot time thinking about this and wrote a long  
article on it. Please see:
http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html

about the keybinding... the ergonomic one i made was intended for  
just myself and maybe few courageous lisp souls out there.  It is  
probably too radical to be considered for wider adaption.  The Dvorak  
keyboard layout probably would have far more significance and impact  
world-wide beyond emacs... but that's not happening anytime soon. ^_^  
(i can just feel the billions of people world-wide at this moment, in  
writing emails, in instant messaging, in blogging, in chinese typing  
of the few billions in Asia... wrecking their hands with qwerty now.  
What's a few emacs pinky?)

  Xah
  xah@xxxxxxxxxx
∑ http://xahlee.org/



On Aug 11, 2007, at 2:44 PM, David Reitter wrote:

On 7 Aug 2007, at 18:01, xah lee wrote:

> Good point. Thanks for the input.
>
> can you add to the data point? :)

The way to get a random sample of all users would really be to bundle  
your code with a distribution and do the study with a large number of  
users. Adding a sample here and there, especially if you ask users  
like me, doesn't make sense methodology-wise.

But to be honest, one would have to talk about the goals of this  
endeavor first. Key bindings should be determined by what people are  
used to. My conjecture: it takes longer to remember an unfamiliar  
command than to type a familiar two- or three-stroke command. I could  
dig out some references from the memory access and UI literature. We  
could build an ACT-R model for it, or run a little study to prove it.  
(I have time for none of the options.)

But essentially, that's why Aquamacs sticks to (presumably) familiar  
Apple key bindings, which have probably been selected according to  
their general frequency. And that's also why Emacs sticks to its  
common key bindings, which do not match the use frequency, but which  
have been learned by its millions of users.

If you'd like to help, given the knowledge gained from your use case  
study, I suggest you help port something like Aquamacs to other  
systems (that is, Windows and GNU/Linux). That way, you'll ensure  
that short key bindings are available for frequent commands ( the  
ranking of less frequent commands will differ more between people,  
and their frequencies will have a much higher error in your study  
with n=1.)
If ported to all three major systems, moving it to a GNU variant will  
be a more realistic proposition. (RMS doesn't seem to object to UI  
changes in an Emacs variants. It's the fact that it's only available  
for the Mac that he doesn't like, and I have to agree with him.)

--
http://aquamacs.org -- Aquamacs: Emacs on Mac OS X
http://aquamacs.org/donate -- Could we help you? Return the favor and  
support the Aquamacs Project!




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