Another major advantage for those of us who must use many
different computers: The key bindings stay put, instead of
wandering all over the periphery of the keyboard depending
on whose keyboard you have to use. E.g., I don't even trust
"ESC" to be "where it belongs"; I use "CTL-[".
Absolutely!
And (speaking of customizing), I learned it the hard way, many, many moon
ago.
When Emacs and I first were acquainted, I *completely* customized my
keyboard, which was wedded to a particular kind of terminal (very
sophisticated for the time; it was in an AI lab). I even went so far as to
tape tiny icons of my own design on the keys to remind myself what special
things I made them do. I had a very complex setup, and I loved it.
Well... naturally, we got new keyboards eventually (the first Sun
workstations), and I was back to square #1. (And there was always the
problem of temporarily using a different terminal on a different system - I
felt naked without my magic keyboard.) I felt like I'd been jilted by a
first love, and I've never recovered from the abandonment.
Bit hard; lesson learned. Now I play with the software, and leave the
keyboard alone.
