Re: Suggested experimental test

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 23.03.2021 15:54, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Cc: bugs@gnu.support, larsi@gnus.org, gregory@heytings.org,
> >   emacs-devel@gnu.org, stefankangas@gmail.com
> > From: Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru>
> > Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2021 15:09:50 +0200
> >
> > Having an alternative, well-considered set of bindings which new user
> > can just toggle on and get comfortable should be valuable.
>
> I doubt that, because we already tried that in CUA mode.  That one
> actually was better posed to succeed, since its key bindings weren't
> invented "out of thin air", but use widely accepted conventions.

CUA mode is only halfway there (if that). It doesn't reach the other 
common bindings, such as C-o for 'open file', C-n for 'new file', C-s 
for 'save file', C-f for 'search forward', C-y for 'redo', C-a for 
'select all'.

And its dispatch is timer-based, as Yuri reminds us. Which is a constant 
source of subtle annoyance which makes its use untenable long-term, 
IMHO. Only as a set of training wheels for new users, but I wonder if 
even that is a good role for it, given that those annoyances create a 
worse impression of the editor for users who enabled it.

> That said, I have no objection to having non-default sets of key
> bindings that users can turn on at will.  I was only responding to
> what I thought was a proposal for conducting such experiments with the
> eventual goal of making the bindings the default.

You said "having a non-default theme that makes a bunch of such 
rebindings makes little sense to me". I have hopefully addressed that.

And as for making such a theme a default, that's far off enough in the 
future not to worry about it much. But OTOH if we manage to make this 
"keybinding theme" approach work, even a switch to a different theme by 
default won't have to be too painful for the many existing users, since 
they would be able to turn on the "Emacs classic" keybinding theme, 
which we will surely create by then.