Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!nucsrl!tellab5!vpnet!dattier
From: dattier@vpnet.chi.il.us (David W. Tamkin)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: Whence vi's hjkl?
Summary: just theorizing
Message-ID: <1991Apr15.183245.12661@vpnet.chi.il.us>
Date: 15 Apr 91 18:32:45 GMT
References: <1991Apr15.021544.19067@umbc3.umbc.edu>
Organization: VPNet Public Access Unix, Villa Park IL  60181-2206
Lines: 38

rouben@math16.math.umbc.edu (Rouben Rostamian) wrote in
<1991Apr15.021544.19067@umbc3.umbc.edu>:

| I have always wondered about the choice of the {h,j,k,l} keys for 
| cursor movement in vi.  What was the rational [sic] behind it? 
| Wouldn't it have been more natural to adopt the {j,k,l,;} keys
| for cursor movement instead?  Aren't the {j,k,l,;} keys the standard
| left hand's "home" keys for touch-typists? 

You must have meant the right hand, unless you were typing by looking in a
mirror over your shoulder.  Anyhow, ...

You speak as if a direct press down on the key already under the finger
were somehow more "natural" than moving a finger to any other key.  Perhaps
the choice was the designers' idea of natural logic over any of natural
finger weight.  ^H means backspace and ^J linefeed, so it's easier on the
brain -- at least it's been easier on my brain -- to learn and remember h
as the synonym of ^H and j as the synonym of ^J.  The decision on cursor
movement has to go through the brain anyway; heck, the brain has to make
it in the first place.

| I find it somewhat annoying to have to move my fingers away from the
| "home" position to move the cursor.  Does anyone consider the usual {h,j,k,l}
| choice natural?  Does anyone have an explanation for the choice?

Do you actually displace your entire right hand one key to the left to hold a
finger over each of the cursor movement keys instead of keeping your hand in
its usual place and using your right index for both the h and the j?

As for whether the designers of vi were touch-typists themselves, I think
the idea was one key for each direction of cursor movement, not one cursor
movement for each of the fingers positioned on the keyboard.

David Tamkin  PO Box 7002  Des Plaines IL  60018-7002  dattier@vpnet.chi.il.us
GEnie:D.W.TAMKIN  CIS:73720,1570  MCIMail:426-1818  708 518 6769  312 693 0591

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