What Is Insertion Point?

The Insertion Point is where you put your cursor, which makes all that fancy digital stuff you do, well, fancy. Insertion point, insertion point, wherefore art thou insertion point? In our digital world, the insertion point is a common feature in many programs we use daily. It's the place where input is going to be inserted and displayed on the screen. In word processors, spreadsheets and text boxes in web forms, this spot is often called "the cursor" and usually appears as a vertical blinking line but, what exactly is it? Let's start with how it got its name "insertion". In its simplest form, an insertion point is a piece of code that tells a program were to insert something new into an existing document. It's like a placeholder for information that doesn't yet exist. A place for your text or data to go when you want to add it somewhere else in your document. So, if you're working on a paper and want to add something new between two paragraphs without changing anything else in those paragraphs (or anywhere else in your article), that's when you need an insertion point! but what if you don't want to add anything new at all? What if all the insertion point has a long history in the personal computer age. The earliest personal computers had an insertion point that was a significant part of the command line interface. Essentially, when booted the computer up, the insertion point as a flashing cursor was one of the first things to appear. Users would manage the insertion point through a series of command lines, and the process was visually straightforward. The insertion point is no longer a part of most interfaces for personal computers, but it remains an essential concept for developers to understand.