OT - "Soft" ESC key on the new MacBook Pro

[Jon Ribbens]

On 2016-12-14, mm0fmf <none at invalid.com> wrote:
> On 14/12/2016 02:40, Paul Rubin wrote:
>> Skip Montanaro <skip.montanaro at gmail.com> writes:
>>> Does the lack of a physical ESC key create problems for people, especially
>>> Emacs users?
>>
>> Not a Mac user and I rarely use ESC instead of ALT while editing with
>> Emacs on a local computer, but when editing remotely I do have to use
>> ESC because the Gnome terminal emulator steals a few ALTed keys.  Maybe
>> there is a way to stop that behaviour but it didn't occur to me til just
>> now.  Hmm.
>>
>> Meanwhile the concept of a computer with "no escape" just shows Apple
>> getting deeper into existentialism.  First it was the hipster Mac users
>> with the Beatnik black berets and turtlenecks, and now this. <wink>
>
> If you need a full time ESC key then you are just "typing it wrong" as 
> Steve Jobs would say if he wasn't dead.

With respect to pressing ESC in Emacs or Vim, you literally don't need
a "full time" ESC key, you only need one when the keyboard input focus
is on a terminal, Emacs or Vim window - and I should imagine that the
ESC key is indeed present whenever that's the case.