Why Emacs Keys Are Painful

I&#x27;m one of those rare vim users that actually uses the cursor keys (and admits it publicly).<p>The author of this article also has information on how early keyboards and circumstances influenced the (now outdated) design of vim. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;xahlee.info&#x2F;kbd&#x2F;history_of_vi_keys.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;xahlee.info&#x2F;kbd&#x2F;history_of_vi_keys.html</a>

That Symbolics keyboard looks like a minor variation on the PC keyboard in some regards.<p>The Control key is in the same wrong general location; it wants to be where Symbolics has Rubout, and where PC keyboards have Caps Lock.<p>Another bad design was the DEC VT100 terminal keyboard. It put Ctrl to the left of a Caps Lock key: [Ctrl][Caps Lock][A][S][D][F]. Yikes!<p>Apple II had this right:<p><pre><code> [Ctrl][A][S][D][F] </code></pre> Commodore 64: Ctrl weirdly high:<p><pre><code> [Ctrl][Q][W][E] [Rs][Sl][A][S][D] </code></pre> Ctrl next to Q. Rs = &quot;RunStop&quot;, Sl = &quot;Shift Lock&quot;.<p>In any case, I need the LeftControl to be <i>somewhere</i> far to the left, just like LeftShift.<p>Here is why: I <i>only</i> use those! I never use RightShift or RightCtrl.<p>When I type Ctrl-Q, Ctrl-W, ... Ctrl-Y, Ctrl-A ... Ctrl-G, Ctrl-Z ... Ctrl-B, I&#x27;m always using the left pinky, plus another finger of the same hand.<p>Same with the capitals of those letters: LeftShift with left pinky, plus left hand finger.<p>Whenever I have to use Alt, which is rare, I use LeftAlt, and it&#x27;s quite awkward with the left side keys due to its position.<p>Here is why I use only LeftShift: from time to time ALL CAPS material occurs, like when typing identifiers such as PTHREAD_MUTEX_INITIALIZER. The only way to type these fast without using the Caps Lock key is to hold down shift with one finger and just type with the remaining nine fingers. Changing between left and right Shift in order to always use the opposite Shift key would be slow and prone to typing mistakes. Once you can type arbitrary material blindingly fast with your pinky holding down the LeftShift key, it makes no sense to think about the existence of RightShift.

This is something so obvious that I don’t understand how I’m the first person I know of to say it: The hand is designed to work with the thumb and fingers in opposition. Therefore, modifier keys should go under the thumbs and the other keys under the fingers. Because the thumb can comfortably and easily oppose each of the four fingers it follows that each thumb should have four available modifier keys spaced to match that natural ergonomic.<p>The keyboards with a thumb cluster are a step in the right direction. Sadly, the positioning is suboptimal at best, because the design philosophy treats the thumb as just another stronger finger.

There is a very simple solution to emacs pinky, although it doesn&#x27;t work on laptop keyboards: pressing the ctrl key with your palm. Whenever I see someone contort their pinky I am shocked that this convenient (and obvious in retrospect) alternative hasn&#x27;t caught on.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;xahlee.info&#x2F;kbd&#x2F;how_to_press_control_key.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;xahlee.info&#x2F;kbd&#x2F;how_to_press_control_key.html</a>

One of the first things most people configure with Vim is a more convenient way to escape (ctrl+[ not withstanding) into normal mode. I don&#x27;t know enough about Emacs culture, but given how prevalent Ctrl&#x2F;Meta are I would expect something similar to the point that those not doing it are the exception.

I&#x27;ve started swapping ESC and caps-lock first using emacs. However, I feel, if you have a good MX keyboard and press Ctrl with your palm. It is actually really nice

The mod swap tragedy is a subtle variation of a very common bug in keymap design: investing in superficial labels instead of real muscles<p>Like if the keymap were designed: &quot;first key left of space&quot; is our primary prefix since it&#x27;s the most convenient (thumb) modifier, then the physical mod swap would&#x27;ve had no effect, and given the dynamic nature of the underlying language you could even have it be changed in a single variable to have an effect on all the keybinds and all the docs<p>(also yet another illustration how arbitrary bad defaults can stick forever, like vim using HJKL instead of fully going home keys JKL; just because some ancient keyboard had left arrow on H)

Yes, but tags-loop-continue Alt+, find-tag Alt+. are constantly used

This highlights the precise reason why Emacs isn&#x27;t good software - it has refused to adapt to the times.