Re: kill-ring-max or other var to convert killing to deleting?

[Ryan Yeske]

   But wouldn't it be handy, generally, to be able to just convert an existing
   `kill-*' function to a `delete-*' function? That is, bind some flag to
   indicate that the deleted text is not to be added to the kill ring:

    (let ((kill-p nil)) (backward-kill-word arg))

What about this:

(defun backward-delete-word (arg)
  (interactive "p")
  (let (kill-ring kill-ring-yank-pointer)
    (backward-kill-word arg)))