Re: What is the purpose of "To bind the key M-DEL, use "\M\d", not M-DEL"

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Richard Stallman wrote:
>     If you do
>
>       (global-set-key [M-DEL] nil)
>
>     you get the error in the subject line.
>
> DEL is not a meaningful function key since function key symbols are
> lower case.  So this has to be an error.
>   

The error message could have said this of course, but it is not the 
whole story.

> At the Lisp level it is better to teach Lisp programmers the correct
> rules than to try to DWIM.
>   

When I do

  C-h k Meta backspace

on w32 the help buffer tells me

   M-DEL (translated from <M-backspace>) runs the command 
backward-kill-word
     which is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `simple.el'.
   It is bound to <C-backspace>, M-DEL.


Would it not be better if the error message we are talking about told me 
to bind [M-backspace] instead?