Readonly Characters Are a Big Deal

Emacs' read-only character attribute enables sophisticated interactive tools by allowing specific text ranges to be protected from user edits while remaining editable by the application. This feature is crucial for building bidirectional interfaces like in-editor terminals where different text sections need different edit permissions. VS Code's Monaco editor lacks this capability, limiting its potential for creating Magit-style interactive applications. The feature is technically challenging to implement as it requires tracking text attributes through modifications and controlling edit behavior dynamically.