Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!kramden.acf.nyu.edu!brnstnd
From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: Whence vi's hjkl?
Message-ID: <26887:Apr1622:49:3991@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 16 Apr 91 22:49:39 GMT
References: <1991Apr15.021544.19067@umbc3.umbc.edu> <1991Apr15.211355.7919@ukpoit.co.uk>
Organization: IR
Lines: 26

In article <1991Apr15.211355.7919@ukpoit.co.uk> alan@ukpoit.co.uk (Alan Barclay) writes:
> Fairly obviously the designers of vi wern't touch typists, for two
> reasons:
> 1) As you say, the home is one character off.

I have to disagree with this. First, I use jk much more than hl---there
are lots of fast ways to move around within a line, and hl are really
only for slow work. Second, I almost never need to switch instantly
between j and h. Third, the pinky is often busy moving back and forth to
Return, so for l's it's faster to use the ring finger. Fourth, vi lets
you redefine keys so easily that this is hardly a major issue. Finally,
the choice of keys was, as others have pointed out, dictated by the
arrow markings on ADM terminals.

> 2) If you're a touch typist then 'u','d','l','r' seems as natural as
> you can get....

Mnemonic, yes; natural for a touch typist, no. The fastest motion is
alternating keys between hands (and I'd love to see someone try to
design a keyboard for this---Dvorak doesn't take digraphs into account).
The second-fastest is between fingers far apart on one hand. In any case
it is very slow to switch between keys on different rows. I might pick d
for up, k for down, f for left (or some more useful leftwards motion),
and j for right (or rightwards), just because they're so easy to type.

---Dan