You can also remap a key like Caps Lock to Escape, straight from System Preferences on macOS (unless you're already remapping it to Ctrl or something)
I do this and while I'm on my magic keyboard I sometimes forget and keep using the physical Esc key. I need to see if I can use something like BTT/Keyboard Maestro to respect the physical (or Touchbar) Esc key but send a notification of something like "You should use the Caps Lock Key instead" to help train myself better. I will say it's really nice that macOS makes it stupid easy to map Caps Lock to Esc and it work flawlessly for me.
I did this recently. An upgrade to a Mac with a touchbar prompted it, but I should have done it over a decade ago.
Caps lock remapped to esc is definitely a great solution - I have been using it for years
In Emacs, we remap Caps Lock to Ctrl.
Does anyone actually like Caps Lock?
I PROGRAM IN A LEGACY ENVIRONMENT THAT USES CAPS ONLY. I LOVE CAPS LOCK AND FIND IT ANNOYING TO HAVE TO SWITCH BACK AND FORTH WITH SHIFT.
so emails and general writing tend to be all lower case and rely on the editor to upcase for me. mostly works.
Man, what a sad statement...
I get where they are coming from. I find the touch bar pretty neat and useful... But it's dynamic and I don't want that to interfere with pure muscle memory tasks like typing.