Re: Proposal: Bind backspace and delete like DEL in view-mode

[Richard Stallman]

    Since emacs tells me that the <backspace> key's "internal" name
    is DEL, I would like to be able to rebind it using

            (define-key map [DEL] ...)

    This is currently not possible - instead users have to know that
    DEL is synonymous with ascii 127 and know about octal notation to
    write something like

            (define-key map "\177" ...)

It sounds like you are suggesting we define DEL as a sort of alias for
"\d" for rebinding purposes.

That might be reasonable, given that `DEL' as an input event is itself
meaningless and probably always will be meaningless.  But I think it
might be better to make this an error, and have the error message say
you should bind "\d" instead.  That would get the same job done by
telling people how to do this in the way that is, and always has been,
preferred.

The same could be done for TAB, ESC, RET and SPC.

    Sure, but how does the novice user that TAB is "\t".

Currently, by reading the Emacs Manual.
But adding that error would offer people another place to learn from.