I'm not a Mac User, but I use THE ESC key extensively to cancel out of dialogs.

Even if mac apps come mapped to other keys, many peaplo still runs windows with bootcamp, virtual box etc and wine programs in apple computers, making things even harder.

And about external keyboards? Apple keyboards comes with F keys... they are going to be uselles now?

I'm not even a power emacs user or something (IntelliJ is my preferred IDE). YMMV of course, but I find the hotkeys super useful.

I don't know why everyone is unnecessarily freaking out over this non-issue that has so many alternative solutions, some of which will be superior.

I'm a heavy vim user and use the ESC key all the time. If I get the new MacBook Pro I'll probably see how the touch key works, and then rebind if it's necessary. It's not the end of the world.

But seriously I use esc all the time to come in and out of modes in VIM.

I also use it in VIM mode in RStudio, VS Code and many other text editors.

FUNCTION KEYS - I use them all day with my IDEs. F2 is my go to help files.

That's pretty uncommon to imply it's generalizable. Most vim users, I feel comfortable in saying, actually use 'Esc', or a key mapped to the same. Speaking for myself, I can't see why I'd want to use two keys when one would do.

So whether you map it directly to Esc or to a modifier, the parent's point stands: Vim users don't need the Esc key and are probably better off without it.

- can you give me some details on your remap setup on macOS? if you have dotfiles somewhere that'd be great.

- as a vim user who only uses vim as an editor, I challenge the assumption that touch Esc is a horrible thing. Esc is a very special key and it may turn out to be ok for it to _be_ different, and _feel_ different.

When did you switch to the Caps Lock mapping? How long did it take you to get use to it?

Personally I think people make way too big a deal about the escape key being difficult to hit. It's right there in the corner, never been a problem for me.

Many people already map capslock to ctrl. You could map ctrl to ESC, but then it gets uncomfortable when switching computers, and it goes against 10+ years of muscle memory.

I tried remapping capslock once, but it got too confusing when switching computers.

I used this software to do this https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

I don't even know what commands would use the ESC key?

The other anecdote is I've been using vim for about 15 years, and use esc daily. I am constantly in multiple vim environments - different servers, different clients, different OS, etc. I don't have the luxury of saying "I'm going to install all my default vim keybindings and plugins on every vim installation I ever use". Walking someone else over the phone who has to do vim - I need to count on some standard defaults being there, and 'esc' is one.

So yeah - some of you "power users" - fine - you've never touched ESC in 20 years - good for you. You're in the minority.

Vim users that use escape to leave insert mode are not exactly a majority of Mac users. Also, many people have been complaining about the location of Escape for such an important command. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4416512/why-use-esc-in-vi...

Having said that, I use Escape myself in Vim - you know what? I'll adapt.

This has nothing to do with the new MBP being unsuitable for developers. This is about power users being forced to abandon ingrained habits.

I'm not even a power user, & after 25 years, I just know the basic few commands that you need to do anything - insert, delete, search/replace, save, & quit.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!

See, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi#Interface

End insert or Replace mode, go back to Normal mode. Finish abbreviation.

Note: If your <Esc> key is hard to hit on your keyboard, train yourself to use CTRL-[.

  There are commands that switch you into input mode.
  There is only one key that takes you out of input mode,
  and that is the <escape> key. (Key names are written
  using less-than and greater-than signs, e.g. <escape>
  means the ``escape'' key, usually labeled ``esc'' on
  your terminal's keyboard.)  If you're	ever confused 
  as to which mode you're in, keep entering the <escape>
  key until vi beeps at you.

I'm a happy user of http://ex-vi.sf.net/ and can confirm that, since it's the exact same key code, it works -fine-.

EDIT: Thanks for the replies, other people. I personally use ^C, I was curious what 'mozumder specifically used. :)

I will, however, never forgive Excel for Esc being "abandon edit".

I was expecting more commands to use the ESC key?

I was expecting commands to be anything you did after the typing in colon.