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#1 2009-04-28 14:33:01

moljac024
Member
From: Serbia
Registered: 2008-01-29
Posts: 2,676

Emacs pinky?

In the interest of broadening my horizons, the last couple of days I have been reading up on, and trying out Emacs.
I've found this interesting term, apparently "emacs pinky" refers to the injuries one can sustain by using emacs heavily. Notable emacs users have had their share of repetitive stress injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome and the likes.

I'm just curios about this, I want to hear from you emacs users among Arch, how you deal with those keybindings ? I have found them rather difficult and inefficient myself. Do you remap caps-lock to be a control key ? I tried that but it doesn't seem to improve the situation much. Do most of you have different keybinds of your own ? If so, perhaps everyone here can share ?

Note that I have also read about Vim users remapping caps-lock to function as a mode change (or ESC, if you like) but I never had problems hitting that key, maybe because I never use my pinky for it ?

EDIT: And please, don't bring the holy war here wink

Last edited by moljac024 (2009-04-28 14:33:46)


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#2 2009-04-28 15:03:23

Procyon
Member
Registered: 2008-05-07
Posts: 1,819

Re: Emacs pinky?

I use the side of my palm to hit CTRL.

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#3 2009-04-28 15:24:53

u_no_hu
Member
Registered: 2008-06-15
Posts: 453

Re: Emacs pinky?

Swap alt and ctrl.  Hiting ctrl with your thumb is better than hitting ctrl with pinky.


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#4 2009-04-28 16:12:22

the_isz
Member
Registered: 2009-04-14
Posts: 280

Re: Emacs pinky?

I'm using emacs since years now and I never encountered any problems concerning any of my fingers. The only emacs-related problem ever
occuring to me is trying to use other programs with emacs keybindings out of habit smile

My worst enemy: M$ VS. I must use this horrib IDE at work and to some extent, it even supports emacs keybindings, but it's never enough if it's
not emacs big_smile

Last edited by the_isz (2009-04-28 16:12:48)

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#5 2009-04-28 21:57:37

moljac024
Member
From: Serbia
Registered: 2008-01-29
Posts: 2,676

Re: Emacs pinky?

So I guess you use the arrow keys for moving the cursor ?


The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But if they tell you that I've lost my mind, maybe it's not gone just a little hard to find...

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#6 2009-04-28 23:25:37

mike_r
Member
Registered: 2009-01-22
Posts: 114

Re: Emacs pinky?

I've been using emacs for 24 years (yes, really! - 1985) and generally don't have any problems. I will say that modern keyboards that put the control key in the bottom left corner make the combinations worse. On the old Vax systems I started with, and I think even the '80s and '90s Suns, they had the control key where the PC puts the caps lock key. In this position, the combinations are much easier on the fingers, and I presume this is the origin of the caps-lock/control swap you mentioned. I do find it easier with the swap, but haven't done it recently just because I use too many different machines and haven't bothered.

Mike


Linux User #353 - SLS -> Slackware -> Red Hat -> Mandrake -> Fedora -> Arch

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#7 2009-04-29 00:21:12

BC
Member
Registered: 2008-01-29
Posts: 83

Re: Emacs pinky?

Procyon wrote:

I use the side of my palm to hit CTRL.

That's what I do too.

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#8 2009-04-29 00:53:23

ljshap
Member
From: Ossining, NY
Registered: 2008-01-23
Posts: 160

Re: Emacs pinky?

moljac024 wrote:

In the interest of broadening my horizons, the last couple of days I have been reading up on, and trying out Emacs.
I've found this interesting term, apparently "emacs pinky" refers to the injuries one can sustain by using emacs heavily. Notable emacs users have had their share of repetitive stress injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome and the likes.

...

EDIT: And please, don't bring the holy war here wink

I always called it finger gymnastics, especially when using it as a c/c++ ide with the source in one window and the debugger in another.


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#9 2009-04-29 02:59:05

Magician21
Member
Registered: 2007-03-23
Posts: 45

Re: Emacs pinky?

"The only emacs-related problem ever occuring to me is trying to use other programs with emacs keybindings out of habit"
Seconded smile

I find Xemacs/emacs macros to be very easy on the hands.  Far easier than the impact of the mouse on my hand when I have to break down and use it smile

I don't bother with remapping the CAPS and CTRL keys.  Of course, I don't have "home row" typing skills.  If I did, I would probably want to remap those keys.

I'm a faster typist than most people I know, which isn't saying much wink  Xemacs/emacs just helps me do what I want, and do it faster.  My Xemacs configuration at work is way more efficient than clicking through a half-dozen menus and windows to grep, compile, download code to a target, etc.

Once you get used to the keybindings in any flavor of emacs (or even a vi / vi variant), you'll never go back to a VS IDE.  Either emacs or vi have so much built-in that I feel like I'm in the dark ages when I have to use anything else.  "What do you mean you can't transpose letters and lines with a single keypress?!"

"Notable emacs users have had their share of repetitive stress injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome and the likes."
Anyone who knows emacs very well has spent at least double the time necessary to develop these conditions in front of a screen - either for work, pleasure, or both.  Most of them (including me) are highly opinionated too.  It's keeping that bottled up appropriately that causes stress injuries! wink

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#10 2009-04-29 06:21:22

the_isz
Member
Registered: 2009-04-14
Posts: 280

Re: Emacs pinky?

moljac024 wrote:

So I guess you use the arrow keys for moving the cursor ?

Indeed. I really should train to use the key combinations for that.

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#11 2009-04-29 07:17:44

moljac024
Member
From: Serbia
Registered: 2008-01-29
Posts: 2,676

Re: Emacs pinky?

u_no_hu wrote:

Swap alt and ctrl.  Hiting ctrl with your thumb is better than hitting ctrl with pinky.

Ok, this seems reasonable...did you do it globally ?
Cause I don't want to do that, is there a possibility to swap ctrl and alt only as far as emacs goes ?


The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But if they tell you that I've lost my mind, maybe it's not gone just a little hard to find...

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#12 2009-04-29 16:04:36

ravster
Member
From: Queen's U, Kingston, Canada
Registered: 2004-05-02
Posts: 285
Website

Re: Emacs pinky?

I've never understood using the Caps key as a Ctrl key, and so have never tried it. What I did was notice the the "Space Cadet" keyboard (on the Symbolics Lisp machines) had Ctrl where Alt is on my keyboard and Meta where the "Windows" key is. So I globally changed the mappings on my keyboard to reflect that. Now I have 4 Ctrl keys and 2 Alt keys (where the "windows" key (a.k.a. "Super key") used to be).
When I want to use Alt, I use my pinky finger and when I want to use Ctrl I use my thumb or the finger next to the pinky, and I find it quite easy and simple.  My pinky used to feel weird ('cause I'd always use the left one) but now I don't have problems with any fingers. I use the emacs keybindings with the Conkeror browser and other bindings with StumpWM, and things are good.

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#13 2009-04-29 23:32:39

anrxc
Member
From: Croatia
Registered: 2008-03-22
Posts: 834
Website

Re: Emacs pinky?

Moljac, don't worry about your pinky... just take a look at an (x)emacs users keyboard (and it's not just any user smile
"That's just how meta he is, man."  http://jwz.livejournal.com/1040129.html 

By the way I have Ctrl on Caps, wouldn't have it any other way.


You need to install an RTFM interface.

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#14 2009-05-18 10:55:41

einheitlix
Member
Registered: 2009-03-31
Posts: 16

Re: Emacs pinky?

I've been using Emacs for quite a long time too (since about 1997 - that makes 12 years, half as long as Mike wink), and I've never had any problems whatsoever with my fingers, except, as the_isz mentioned, that once in a while I try to use those good old die-hard key bindings in other programs too.

In fact I always use GNU Screen in any terminal, and I have thus configured it with emacs-like key bindings. For instance, I can split a screen horizontally with C-a 2 (the default would be C-a S), like in emacs, where I can achieve a horizontal split with C-x 2. The same goes for many other examples, the only difference each time being that C-a is the control character I use in screen, and C-x in Emacs; this avoids collisions when I use emacs in a terminal instead of its graphical interface (emacs -nw).

By the way, I personally use neither thumb nor pinky, but my ring finger (left hand) to hit Ctrl. Since most of the keys I want to hit in Emacs together with Ctrl are 'c', 'x', 's', 'a', 'f', 'w', 'y'... and since those are all in the lower left region of the keyboard, I can still easily reach them with my index. I have a german keyboard where 'z' and 'y' are interchanged as compared to an english keyboard. When I want to hit a key that is further away from Ctrl, either my left hand automatically slides a little to the right and I use my little finger to hit Ctrl; or if it is even further away, I use my right hand's index to hit that key. I should mention that I only type with 3 or 4 fingers, but I still beat most people that I know in matters of speed, even if they use a ten-finger system tongue

Last edited by einheitlix (2009-05-18 11:34:09)

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