Emacs: delete whitespaces or a word

Question

How can I configure emacs to work in the same way as other modern editors where pressing Alt+D or Alt+Backspace deletes either ad

Answer 1

This has most likely been solved before, but instead of looking for code, we can write our own. So much fun!

This is how I would do it, hope it helps.

(defun kill-whitespace-or-word ()
  (interactive)
  (if (looking-at "[ \t\n]")
      (let ((p (point)))
        (re-search-forward "[^ \t\n]" nil :no-error)
        (backward-char)
        (kill-region p (point)))
    (kill-word 1)))

Then bind it to a key:

(global-set-key (kbd "M-d") 'kill-whitespace-or-word)