---
title: "Using Emacs: A masochist's guide"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2005/4/20/using-emacs-a-masochists-guide.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2005/4/20/using-emacs-a-masochists-guide.html"
published: "2005-04-20T17:27:00"
updated: "2005-04-20T17:27:00"
tags: ["Off Topic"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "Using EMacs : The ultimate hacker's text editor. Why on earth does Don Box like this thing? (via Anarchia ) Always did wonder what everyone saw in this thing. I'm a keyboard freak myself but this thing is *daunting*!…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Using Emacs: A masochist's guide

By Roy Osherove April 20, 2005 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic)

**Historical article** · Originally published April 20, 2005; technical details may be outdated.

[Using EMacs](http://www.surfaceeffect.com/essays/emacs.html): The ultimate hacker's text editor. Why on earth does Don Box like this thing?

_(via_ [_Anarchia_](http://chneukirchen.org/anarchaia/archive/2005/04/17.html)_)_

Always did wonder what everyone saw in this thing. I'm a keyboard freak myself but this thing is \*daunting\*!

Tried it a few times, but I guess you have to be a real masochist to fall in love with this thing. That is - getting past the big hurdle takes the strength of a marathon runner. How would you feel if all your key bindings in the text editor looked like this:

**(M = ALT, C= Control)**

<table><tbody><tr><td>C-f</td><td>move forward one character</td><td>M-f</td><td>move forward one word</td></tr><tr><td>C-b</td><td>move backwards one character</td><td>M-b</td><td>move backwards one word</td></tr><tr><td>C-n</td><td>move down one line (next line)</td><td>C-v</td><td>move down one screenful</td></tr><tr><td>C-p</td><td>move up one line (previous line)</td><td>M-v</td><td>move up one screenful</td></tr><tr><td>Backspace</td><td>delete to the left</td><td>M-Backspace</td><td>delete word to the left</td></tr><tr><td>C-d</td><td>delete to the right</td><td>M-d</td><td>delete word to the right</td></tr><tr><td>C-e</td><td>move to end of line</td><td>M-e</td><td>move to end of paragraph</td></tr><tr><td>C-a</td><td>move to start of line</td><td>M-a</td><td>move to start of paragraph</td></tr></tbody></table>

| Key-binding | Function |
| --- | --- |
| C-right or M-right | move forward one word |
| C-left or M-left | move backwards one word |
| C-up | move up one paragraph |
| C-down | move down one paragraph |
| M-up | \--Unbound-- |
| M-down | \--Unbound-- |

## More in Off Topic

[All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic)

- May 3, 2005

    ### [RSS support from YNet Israel - Finally](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/5/3/rss-support-from-ynet-israel-finally.html)

- May 3, 2005

    ### [When training classes go horribly wrong](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/5/3/when-training-classes-go-horribly-wrong.html)

- Apr 20, 2005

    ### [The spin on passover](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/4/20/the-spin-on-passover.html)

- Apr 18, 2005

    ### [Team Agile is hiring](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/4/18/team-agile-is-hiring.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

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### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/