Because vim has a lot of commands which are to do with navigation, with standard editing controls you would either press the left arrow a bunch of times while watching the prompt and stop when it's in the correct place. Then you would enter the comma and repeat the process going right.
(I know you can use home/end or ctrl to jump over words, however often these aren't always applicable and often still need visual feedback)
In vim it's significantly easier to jump to the desired point on the line with fewer key strokes and no need for a visual feedback loop.
In short; it's not the fact you can use the keyboard to navigate, rather it's the fact that you can navigate efficiently with the keyboard without having to think about the position of the cursor.
> I know you can use home/end or ctrl to jump over words, however often these aren't always applicable and often still need visual feedback
Which makes vim faster, but doesn't mean one needs to reach for a mouse; secondly, what touch typist isn't already watching what he's typing? Requiring visual feedback is hardly slow.
> In vim it's significantly easier to jump to the desired point on the line with fewer key strokes and no need for a visual feedback loop.
I'm aware of that, but that's not the argument you made. You said you didn't have to reach for the mouse, well, neither do any of the other editors.
> In short; it's not the fact you can use the keyboard to navigate, rather it's the fact that you can navigate efficiently with the keyboard without having to think about the position of the cursor.
While true, you overestimate how much other editors make you think about the cursor as well. Our muscle memory works just as well as yours and though vim gives you more options to exploit it, it's not as if other editors don't offer anything other than visual and a mouse.
> Which makes vim faster, but doesn't mean one needs to reach for a mouse; secondly, what touch typist isn't already watching what he's typing? Requiring visual feedback is hardly slow.
Yes it is. You can go seven or eight keystrokes in vim recording a macro without any feedback whatsoever, and still end up with a wickedly powerful edit.
> I'm aware of that, but that's not the argument you made. You said you didn't have to reach for the mouse, well, neither do any of the other editors.
No I didn't. I simply said contrast that to moving your mouse. You could also contrast it to ctrl+right arrowing to the word on the line but in vim thats just `5w` (where five is the number of words along the line) in normal mode. It still requires less cognitive and physical effort. You could also contrast it to the built-in readline ctrl+ shortcuts and it would still be less keystrokes.
> While true, you overestimate how much other editors make you think about the cursor as well.
No I really don't. I wasn't magically born with vim superpowers. Like everyone else I started with a regular text editor and worked my way to vim proficiency. I became proficient with eclipse, crimson editor and quite a few others before deciding that vim was what I wanted to invest in long term.
> Our muscle memory works just as well as yours and though vim gives you more options to exploit it, it's not as if other editors don't offer anything other than visual and a mouse.
Very well, good luck to you with your other editors. I seriously think you should use whatever you feel most comfortable with.
Vim isn't only about movement, it gives you some very efficient ways to actually manipulate text.
Take this example line of code:
#define test "Some magical string."
Say the cursor was at the beginning of the line and you wanted to completely change the contents of the string. In a regular editor, you might <ctrl><Right Arrow> a few times and <Del> a bunch to remove everything in the string before you start typing the new one. In vim, you would simply:
f"ci"
And you'd be ready to start typing the new string. Or if you wanted to capitalize 'test':
WgUe
It's difficult to understand the power of modal editing until you experience it
(I know you can use home/end or ctrl to jump over words, however often these aren't always applicable and often still need visual feedback)
In vim it's significantly easier to jump to the desired point on the line with fewer key strokes and no need for a visual feedback loop.
In short; it's not the fact you can use the keyboard to navigate, rather it's the fact that you can navigate efficiently with the keyboard without having to think about the position of the cursor.