> it'd be designed with keybindings for a modern keyboard - probably cloning vim.
Or not. This is something some have a hard time understanding, but some of us prefer a non-modal editor and like having simpler key chords instead of key sequences. After all, vi isn't that much younger than Emacs, and the technical underpinnings of its command language are just about as old as the oldest versions of TECO Emacs. My point is that the difference between vi-style keystrokes and Emacs-style is a matter of taste.
Bill Joy, maker of Vi, was rather impressed by Emacs's input model in fact:
> I think one of the interesting things is that vi is really a mode-based editor. I think as mode-based editors go, it pretty good. One of the good things about EMACS, though, is its programmability and the modelessness. Those are two ideas which never occurred to me.
> This is something some have a hard time understanding, but some of us prefer a non-modal editor and like having simpler key chords instead of key sequences.
I'll second this.
I literally grew up on VI - my dad installed it with UNIX tools on the family 486 running MS-DOS. Then I dedicated a week to learning Emacs around the turn of the century, and I've never looked back.
To be sure, I still whip out vim for quick editing of remote server config files and it's my editor in mutt. But there's just so much power in emacs - I'm reminded of Vivek Halder's "Levels of Emacs Proficiency"[0], and the fact I do most everything in Emacs these days (I live in org-mode, play music in EMMS, run git through EGG, etc, etc). It's hard to think of anything with this level of consistency of keybindings, nor something that does so many things I need to do.
Or not. This is something some have a hard time understanding, but some of us prefer a non-modal editor and like having simpler key chords instead of key sequences. After all, vi isn't that much younger than Emacs, and the technical underpinnings of its command language are just about as old as the oldest versions of TECO Emacs. My point is that the difference between vi-style keystrokes and Emacs-style is a matter of taste.