Next time, at least in Chrome, you can hit the back button to return to the page you were at with your text in tact.
But, you probably wasted your time anyway because no one is disputing with you that you that there are quicker ways to navigate in Vim than exclusive use of hjkl. The argument is that there is a place for them in navigation, and that using them over the arrow keys keeps your hands on the home row allowing a smoother transition between navigation and input.
Now, you may disagree that there's any loss by using the arrow keys in your workflow. And you may be right. But that certainly does not make the claim "hjkl are useless" universally accurate--which is what started this thread down this argument.
I said "useless", but only because johncoltrane said "worthless" earlier :) But I understand it as "learn to be effective with other movement commands, don't concentrate on hjkl" - and that was my message too.
Anyway, I don't know whether arrows are faster or not. For me they most probably wouldn't, for some people they could be. However, for me right now, when I know and use other commands much more than arrows/hjkl, learning the former would be simply a case of diminishing returns.
I think that proficient use of vi-style keybinding means that movements by one letter are the rarest ones. I don't know, but I feel that I don't use them more that a few times per hour at most. I have macros, scripts and !programs to use, not to mention other movements. And besides, look - Emacs doesn't have hjkl, has wWetc. and is not slower than VIM! (except with startup).
Also I think that insisting on hjkl efficiency even without any proof is not the best thing to do to attract more users to VIM ;)
That's certainly fair. I wasn't trying to come off as a hjkl evangelist, I just thought that the terms 'worthless' and 'useless' were way too strong to support.
I guess I misunderstood the point you guys were making, because I certainly agree that someone learning Vim should learn to be effective with other movement commands, and not concentrate on hjkl. The value of Vim is not just being able to move around text with a standard one character up/down/left/right movement, hands on home row or not.
My original comment was only about hjkl vs motions: I didn't bring arrows in the discussion, the parent did. Also my claim was:
> hjkl are almost worthless compared to other means of navigation
and I stand by it. I didn't write "hjkl are useless" or advocate the use of arrows vs hjkl, IIRC.
hjkl are better than the arrows for short range movements but those short range movements (1-3 cols, 1-3 lines) make up such a small part of the movements we actually do all day long that focusing on hjkl is just absurd.
All the hjkl advocacy can be reduced to "Do whatever you'd do with arrows but with hjkl because it helps you save all those right hand movements… and home row." But char-by-car and line-by-line movement is just as slow and bad with hjkl as it is with arrows.
Saving a few slight translations of the right hand is so worthless compared to the thousands of hjkl or arrows you save with bBwWeEfFtT/?{}() and friends… unless we try to save our wrists but why make productivity claims, then?
I apologize, I did confuse you with the other commentator.
Everyone agrees that using w to move a word at a time is better than llllllll. No one is arguing with you about that. So in that sense, we all agree that for certain movements, hjkl really is worthless compared to alternatives.
But if you want to move a few characters, there's no better option than hljk.
Second best are the arrow keys. But there's really no reason to move your hand out of position just to move one character when your finger is already on the key which will do it.
So, I don't think it's at all accurate to say in general that hjkl is worthless compared to other means of navigation. They have their place, and they're quite valuable there since all other means of navigation are almost worthless compared to hjkl when moving a few characters.
Yes, moving by a few characters is indeed best done with hjkl if you touch type.
But the vast majority of movements we do doesn't belong to that category. In a day, I'll do a hundred or a thousand more long range movements and I argue that these long range movements are those that deserve optimization the most. Going back a few words is better done with bbb and (probably) a couple of l than 20 or so h and IMO insisting on new users to disable the arrow keys to learn hjkl is way beside the mark and horribly myopic.
Using hjkl instead of the arrows is better but the gain is ridiculous compared to what you get with motions: if you replace a thousand of arrows with a thousand of hjkl you get a small benefit; if you replace a thousand of hjkl or arrows with a hundred of bw and co. you get a huge benefit. Learning hjkl gets so much emphasis for so little usefulness…
So yeah, hjkl are almost worthless compared to other means of navigation. For a huge percentage of the actual movements we do all day long.
But, you probably wasted your time anyway because no one is disputing with you that you that there are quicker ways to navigate in Vim than exclusive use of hjkl. The argument is that there is a place for them in navigation, and that using them over the arrow keys keeps your hands on the home row allowing a smoother transition between navigation and input.
Now, you may disagree that there's any loss by using the arrow keys in your workflow. And you may be right. But that certainly does not make the claim "hjkl are useless" universally accurate--which is what started this thread down this argument.