Subject: bug#631: the M- notation suggestion

From: Yavor Doganov <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:39:09 +0300

Lennart Borgman (gmail) wrote:
> 
> I think both the menus and the help command should reflect the
> actual keyboard labeling (for a standard keyboard on the used OS).

IMHO this is close to impossible, since GNU/Linux runs on a variety
(at least 10) architectures, including archaic and modern machines
that have vastly different keyboards.  So there are many "standard
keyboards" for the OS GNU/Linux, also for the various free variants of
BSD.

"M-" existed since about forever; wiping it out will do more harm than
good.  If a new Emacs user has problems understanding it and finding
the right key on her keyboard, she surely will have much more problems
with other Emacs features, let alone more complicated concepts and
advanced usage.

Also, you should not consider only the Emacs manual.  Think of the
tens or hundreds of manuals of add-on packages, non-Emacs packages
(like Texinfo), and knowledge base like the mailing lists or sites
like the Emacs Wiki.  Changing something as fundamental as this for no
apparent benefit is a bad idea.  IMHO.