Have you improved 'vi' for terminals with character deletion?

[The WITNESS]

[gollum :-)]

> From: ado at elsie.UUCP (Arthur David Olson)

> If I type the command
> 	awk 'BEGIN { printf "xxx\t01234567890123456789\n" }' /dev/null > file
> then
> 	vi file
> and tap the x key to delete the first of the three x's, 
> 'vi' ends up retransmitting everything on the line that follows the tab.
> 
> Has anyone out there taught vi how to do this better?

Try setting the :in: characteristic in your termcap (Insert Null; usually a
tab will stay in place on smart terminals).  Other than that, there isn't an
easier way becuase one would break many terminals.

--bsa