[Silica6149]

Definitely a hurdle to overcome for beginners.

Although, it would help to show beginners exactly why abandoning the mouse will be better in the long run. It wouldn't do well for them to always rely on it in place of more efficient commands. Some people might always use the arrow keys instead of hjkl, for example, when hjkl will be better in the long run since they are on the home row.

[CJefferson]

I buy the idea that the more advanced features of vim are worth it, being able to quickly cut+paste bits of text around, skip to end of line/bracket/etc.

I don't believe I'd write usefully larger amounts of code by using hjkl instead of arrow keys, and personally I am always going to use the mouse when I want to move more than a couple of lines.

[Silica6149]

Yup. I had tried to use vim and quit because I thought it was needlessly cumbersome.

What changed my opinion was watching videos of people using vim on youtube that made me interested in learning it for real. It made me realize how much more efficient it could be.

[dimensional_dan]

The comparison is not between hjkl, arrows and mouse movements. Vim motions are far richer than that.