No mention of .inputrc? An explanation of the kill ring would be nice.
Readline is great but I've been running into something that's driven me nuts for a few weeks now. I recently switched to editing-mode=vi and it seems to have changed the behavior of unix-word-rubout(normally ctrl-w). In emacs mode, unix-word-rubout seems to append to the kill ring. In vi mode, it only replaces it. So in emacs mode, I can eat several words with 'ctrl-w' and paste them with 'ctrl-y'. In vi mode(after setting up the mappings), 'ctrl-y' only pastes the last rubbed-out word.
Your comment had enough info that I was able to Google the answer: when you switch to vi mode, C-w gets switched to vi-unix-word-rubout. Override it in .inputrc.
Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I re-setup the mappings after enabling vi mode. So I'm still mapping C-w to unix-word-rubout and not vi-unix-word-rubout.
For those who want a wonderful update to the C-r reverse search, I highly recommend FZF[1], which allows fuzzy search of your command line history when the keybindings are enabled (among other cool features).
Reminder, if you're working on a project that you don't want to be "infected" by the GPL, take a look at anitrez' Linenoise project: https://github.com/antirez/linenoise
It doesn't have all the bells and whistles as Readline, but chances are, you won't miss them anyway.
Ctrl-A and Ctrl-E are discussed. Try also Ctrl-K to delete to the end of the line. Alt-B and Alt-F to move one word at a time. I'm sure there are many more.
Readline is great but I've been running into something that's driven me nuts for a few weeks now. I recently switched to editing-mode=vi and it seems to have changed the behavior of unix-word-rubout(normally ctrl-w). In emacs mode, unix-word-rubout seems to append to the kill ring. In vi mode, it only replaces it. So in emacs mode, I can eat several words with 'ctrl-w' and paste them with 'ctrl-y'. In vi mode(after setting up the mappings), 'ctrl-y' only pastes the last rubbed-out word.