Re: So XyW won't be around tomorrow? Emacs Anyone?

[nsivin@xxxxxxxx (Nathan Sivin)]

I have to laugh at the idea that emacs is the wave of the future.
 I admire it greatly as a neolithic mainframe-type word processor
compared with the paleolithic teco, peco, etc., which is what most
Internet mail users are stuck with. I am trying to do what ought
to be the simplest configuration possible, but after months no
one can tell me how to do it.

A large proportion of emacs commands require use of a "meta" key,
and are handy if you happen to have a keyboard with one. But for
those of us who log in via modem from a PC, and have nothing but
ctrl, alt, shift keys, we are stuck. If we want to go to the end
of a paragraph we have to hit the esc key first, let it go, then
do an e, and so on.
Going backward a word at at time takes two hands! If there is a
way of assigning the meta function to the alt key, and making
sure one can just do alt-e, none of the gurus I have pestered can
figure out how.
How's that for configurable?

On the other hand, every one of the various primitive PC word
processors I have used in the past allow users to take alt-e and
turn it into a two-stroke function if they want to (it is
admittedly handy for someone with the use of only one hand). I
might also mention the general disregard of intuitive keystrokes
when assigning the built-in functions. I am writing this with
emacs, and wish I weren't.
I can assure you that if I ever have the option of using, say, my
1988 version of PC-WRITE to reply online to e-mail messages, I
will jump at the chance.

-- Nathan Sivin
History and Sociology of Science
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA 19104-3325