If start is the initial position of the cursor, end is the final position of the cursor, word is any word characters, and space is any whitespace characters, then there is a two-by-two structure of start-end order and word-space order for movement commands.
- b:
end word space start - e:
start space word end - w:
start word space end - ge:
end space word start
The end space word start command needs two keypresses instead of one. I’m guessing somebody has studied this issue and decided this is right given e.g. the relative frequencies of these operations.
I’m curious what is known about this issue and what design considerations led to the decision. Looking forward to your thoughts!