Virtually all GUI environments will delete a highlighted region when the 【Backspace】/【Delete】 key is pressed or when a character is inserted into the region. Emacs does not currently do that except in a few minor modes such as CUA mode.
RMS has a post on the help-gnu-emacs list asking for reader input on a proposed change to implement this behavior in Emacs 24. Readers are asked to send an email to emacs-delete-poll at gnu.org answering a few questions about the proposal (basically, whether you’re in favor or not and why). The Emacs 24.0.90 pretest build has this change implemented for those who would like to try it out.
My first reaction when reading it was to be opposed on the grounds that it would be too easy to inadvertently delete a region. After a little thought, though, I realized that I never have any problem with this behavior anywhere else and it’s easy to recover from a mistakenly deleted region in Emacs with 【Ctrl+/】or whatever you use for undo.
RMS doesn’t say, but presumably the change could be disabled for those who don’t want it. (I know, I know everything is configurable in Emacs if you know Emacs Lisp—I mean with a single line in init.el.) If that is the case then it’s hard to see how anyone could object. (Actually, some of the commenters do object even in the face of such a flag on the philosophical grounds.)
My conclusions are that I don’t care whether they make this behavior the default as long as it can be disabled1 and that I will probably disable it on the grounds that I’m used to the old behavior. What do you think?
Footnotes:
1 It looks as if setting delete-active-region to nil disables the change.