how to backspace in vi 2554
OK, lets try again. No, It (Emacs) uses ^H for help. That (Emacs uses ^H for help) is the problem. That (Emacs uses ^H for help) meant that emacs users fought (were against, opposed) the use of ^H for backspace.
Is that explication of the referents clarifying?
Self-contradiction is not explication. You should have said: Yes! You are right about Emacs, but please note that that necessarily means...
Yes, precisely. And since "backspace " was far more useful in typing than was delete ( ie removing the letter before the cursor was more useful than removing the one under the cursor) that key came to be used for backspace, and the emacs designers, weaned on the VT100, used it as such. They also decided to use ^H as the help key. This was ok because standards such as ASCII were for wussies and computers were there to do the bidding of the hackers, not of users. This of course led to a conflict as soon as PC rather than vt100 keyboards, which actually followed the standard, became common. And guess who won out.
No. A backspace is destructive as well. It is not the same as "cursor left" as can be seen from the fact that there is no "cursor right" ascii standard.
?????? What chart is this? Backspace on a PC keyboard sends out ^H, not ^?
Del sends out ^? . NOw of course you can translate key presses to ascii in any way you want. Unfortunately you cannot translate programmers.
vim behaves differently depending on the value of ARGV0. If you call it as "-usr-bin-vim", it behaves one way; if you call it...
I did. Just shows how comfortable I am with octal. (who in the world uses octal anymore?)
??? And I never claimed it was.
Unfortuneately not. Various programs have various demands as to what character will act as a backspace. Some programs have ^H hard wired in. If they do not see a ^H they will not erase...
Of course I am blowing smoke.
Self contradiction? Where? That is clearer? Ok, if you say so. Actually I learned to use a computer on an old IBM 1620, flicking switches on the console...
^H is backspace, not non-destructive backspace.
Del is "delete the character under the cursor, not the one before the cursor"
The problem is NOT that one can define one's keyboard as one wants, the problem is that different programmers decide that they want to define the keys as they want. Thus some use ^H, hard coded, as destructive backspace, and some use ^?, and emacs uses ^H as help, and some use curses, and some use whatever else.
No, that is my problem. It does NOT allow the user to select either way, because programmers have hard coded certain incompatible choices into their programs.
A non-destructive backspace is a completely useless extra key, since the arrow control keys came out. Ie, once one has cursor control, you want cursor left, right, up, down all together. You do NOT want some key which duplicates one of those.
Who said anything about removing anything? I was giving a totally biased history to "explain" why Linux has such a mess for the "destructive backspace".
Ah, so you have fallen into the trap yourself, and thus rant on without having any idea of the original poster's problem.
vi ( and vim) HAVE a destructive backspace. It is usually tied to the key above the return key. vim is perfectly useable for a touch typist, if set up properly, which is what the OP was having trouble with. And you in your ignorance then state that I am giving worthless advice when you have no idea whatsoever, as you admit, what you are talking about.
Again, who said anything about removing anything. I was just "exlaining" ( with an obviously biased pseudo-historical rant) why the "backspace" problem was such a mess in Linux. If you have another explanation for why it is such a mess, give it. I also suggested a way to repair the problem under vi(m).
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