Re: [External] : Re: Gitlab Migration

[Tim Cross]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> Con: It's not the same thing.  The `kill-ring'
>>      is not what non-emacsers are used to.
>
> [ This is all very hypothetical, so it clearly doesn't matter, but IMO
>   the difference is small enough not to matter when it comes to choosing
>   this key binding, IMO.  ]
>
>> This is similar to the pros & cons for words
>> in different languages that look the same or
>> similar, and may (or may not) have similar
>> meanings and uses, but can nevertheless be
>> quite different in some respects.
>>
>> In French they're called "faux amis" - fake
>> friends.
>
> Nope.  "Faux amis" are words whose core meanings are just plain
> different, whereas "Cut" and `kill-region` fundamentally mean pretty
> much the same thing (with some minor differences).
>
>> We should consider adopting (and improving!)  something that provides
>> real improvement, not just something that's the flavor of the month
>> (or the decade).
>
> `C-x` for "Cut" has been standard for a lot more than a decade.
>
Yes, I think this may be a 'flavour' which has won and can no longer be
considered a passing fad. The uncommon bindings used by Emacs for cut,
copy and paste is probably the number one complaint I hear from new
users. The kill-ring really just provides an enhancement rather than
a fundamental difference.

This would probably be a good candidate for the profiles idea. Change
the default, but have the old behaviour in a 'traditional' profile and
have the default be the more common CUA bindings. Personally, I would
probably load the traditional profile because that is what my finger
memory is and because I've spent way too many hours tweaking everything
else to use the Emacs bindings for these operations. However, part of me
wishes I'd not become accustomed to those key bindings as it is a
constant frustration when I'm forced to use a different program which
I've not been able to tweak - none of which would be necessary if I
hadn't grown accustomed to Emacs bindings. These are such common and
frequently used bindings, consistency across applications is probably
more important than maintaining inconsistent bindings simply to
highlight fairly subtle differences.