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Comment by cptnapalm | Hacker News Reader

Of the four or so tutorials I took a peek at, only the one on qualitative economics mentioned the backspace as how to get out of pkg mode. I'm left wondering what's wrong with Escape.

The authors don't seem to have touched it since their O'Reilly book was published.

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Well, you get into the pkg mode by typing `]`, so from an intuitive standpoint you get out by deleting that character. When you're in any REPL mode there is a character typed at the beginning of your line that renders as a mode. Delete it, and it goes away.

I think it makes more sense than escape, actually, but everyone is so used to using escape that it's not too strange to not think of it.

Intuitive to me: press a button toggles a mode. Hit the button again to toggle again. Also intuitive to me: press a button to toggle a mode, hit Escape to escape that mode. Not intuitive to me: press a button to toggle a mode. Press Backspace to erase a character that isn't on the screen.

But didn't it become more intuitive when I explained it? 'Type something to enter a mode, delete it to exit'. I'm pretty used to invisible characters, but I just think it makes sense. Anyway, you really just need to hear it once, and then it should stick.

No, I still don't find anything intuitive about it. It's not hard to memorize, but I still don't find it an intuitive or sensible method for exiting.

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