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Comment by eridius | Hacker News Reader

I really don't understand why everybody seems to think the Escape key is so important. I almost never hit mine, and since the Touch Bar has a virtual escape key, I don't really see the problem. The best I can figure is everybody complaining is a Vim user, but if you're a Vim user I don't know why you haven't already replaced the cumbersome Escape key with something easier, like binding `jk`, or binding Caps Lock to Control and then using Control-[.

So can you explain why everybody is so upset that they don't have a physical Escape key?

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Muscle memory. Nearly 40 years of Emacs muscle memory.

Sure, you can rebind it. But this starts to interrupt flow when you switch keyboards.

ESC wasn't broken. They broke it. I'm done.

Your argument consists of "people who don't work like I do are wrong" and you imply they should pay the price... for using a key that's been ubiquitous since the beginning of computing time.

Pay what price, though? That's the question I'm asking. What the heck are people using the Escape key for that's so important that they can't tolerate having to tap the Touch Bar instead of having a physical key?

As for ubiquity, that doesn't mean anything. Just because we've had something for a long time doesn't mean we need to keep having it. For example, my current physical keyboard has no Insert key, but that's a key that keyboards had for a long time (my keyboard replaced that with the Eject key). And yet I didn't even notice its lack until I looked at my keyboard just now.

Says the emacs user.

I'm a Vim user. And as I implied in my original comment, I have `jk` bound to Escape, and if I'm ssh'd into a machine without my config, since I have Caps Lock bound to Control, it's still easier to hit Control-[ than it is to hit the Escape key.

You could say the same thing for removing serial ports, or floppy drives, or CD drives. People used them when Apple got rid of them. People whined. Apple still did it. We don't miss them anymore.

Its possible Apple could go too far, but I don't think its fair to say Apple did anything wrong _yet_. They're always early on removing this stuff, but they've never been wrong. Literally never.

Ooh, there's a reference to floppy drives. Apple distortion reality bingo hit!

I miss my CD drive. On a almost daily basis. USB drive to the rescue, oh, wait. Serial ports are fantastic for interfacing with low level electronics. USB dongle for, oh, wait.

> but they've never been wrong. Literally never.

Riiight. That's why they sell so many dongles which replace all of these missing parts.

> They're always early on removing this stuff, but they've never been wrong. Literally never.

"Technology X will be obsolete at some point in the future" is almost tautologically true. They could remove the screens and the keyboards from their laptops today, and that might be a good idea in 50 years time when we're all using direct-brain interfaces, but I would still describe that as being wrong today.

I use the keys on that row, and having physical keys gives me the useful tactile feedback that I've pressed a key. Sounds dumb, but it's real - it's the reason that keyboards are much better to type on than touchscreens.

Not sure why you're downvoted. I am a vim user and the first thing I do is bind escape to caps lick on any new keyboard. Reaching for the escape key would be terrible for my RSI.

They are releasing a new model with normal top row keys too.

... the model with the smaller screen. Not really a great option.

And it doesn't address the lack of standard USB ports (for folks with YubiKeys, etc.), MagSafe, and the jury is out on the actual keyboard until I can type on it. I physically recoiled from the latest MacBook thin keyboard.

What about leaving fullscreen mode while playing video?

The key is still there, on the touch bar. The only problem is that it may be difficult to hit it without looking. That's not a big deal for exiting fullscreen mode.

Pretty sure Cmd+F or similar usually works for that.

Esc closes dialogs.

It doesn't have to be a physical key to do that. The Touch Bar still has a virtual Esc key.

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