Re: [orca-list] the speakupmodified dists from speakupmodified.org

[Jason White <jason jasonjgw net>]

Christopher Chaltain <chaltain gmail com> wrote:
> I don't think anyone is saying that Emacs isn't different from what
> people are used to today, but I think the point is, and I thought of
> making this myself, is that Emacs didn't choose to be different or
> non-standard or go away from the convention that you see today. Emacs
> predates all of what you think of as standard or conventional these
> days. I also don't think you'll see Emacs changing it's key bindings any
> time soon. This would frustrate long time Emacs users, and you'd have to
> prove that marking text with control+shift+arrow keys and cutting it
> with control+x is superior to setting a mark and then writing it to the
> queue with control+w. Emacs maybe unfamiliar when compared to GUI
> applications of the day, but that doesn't mean it isn't a superior way
> of doing things. Just as Orca isn't going to drop something superior
> just to be compatible with JAWS, Emacs isn't going to drop a better way
> of doing something just to make it work more like MS Office.

This is exactly right. Remember also that only by being different from the
rest can software be innovative and superior. One of many areas in which Emacs
stands out is in its keyboard interface. Having come from a background of
UNIX, Emacs and Vi, stepping into Gnome and X applications amounts to taking a
huge step backward in usability, among other reasons because the keyboard
interfaces are so impoverished by comparison.

Learning a new set of keyboard commands is trivial. The real issue is that
typical X applications simply don't have a rich set of keyboard operations by
default. I haven't needed to use Eclipse, but it seems to be better than most
in this respect even without enabling the Emacs key bindings.

I don't think Orca should try to compensate by adding, for example, more
navigation functions to LibreOffice as some have suggested. Rather, I think
this all belongs as part of the application, where the keyboard operations are
available to all users.

So far as key bindings are concerned, I very much like the Emacs choices, and
I use Emacs extensively. However, one could argue that Vi has the best
keyboard interface, since you rarely have to move your hands from the home row
and you don't have to use ALT and CTRL keys regularly. The commands are often
mnemonic and well thought through, as is true in Emacs - it's not surprising
that Emacs and Vi have remained current for decades and are likely to do so
for decades more. I just installed Emacs 24 and I'm looking forward to
learning about the new features.