[tsimionescu]

You don't need a mouse, but it is by far the most ergonomic device we have for navigating to where your eyes are looking at on the screen. This is often useful for selecting text, usually in order to copy/paste or just to highlight.

Try playing some RTS games without a mouse if you want to understand why it's such a useful device in certain situations.

[imbnwa]

Text objects, especially those in neovim which are powered by treesitter, are much more precise than a mouse in a coding context. I can simply select a function, a block scope, a variable assignment, etc.

[tsimionescu]

I use Emacs and occasionally paredit-mode for Lisp structured editing, so I know what you mean.

However, typing a few keys on the keyboard is still not as fast or as automatic as moving the mouse pointer to where your eyes are looking, IF your hand is already on the mouse (such as when scrolling around the code). Of course, if you have to move your hand from the keyboard to the mouse (such as when actively editing), the opposite is usually true.

[stjohnswarts]

I have seen vim gurus I absolutely bet can beat your mousing around every single time when it comes to text operations. I'm not saying I can but I am usually not in that big of a hurry when I'm coding, however I am not bad with navigating vi/evil-mode either.

[tsimionescu]

Can the best vim gurus beat an average mouse user? I am certain they can.

Can they beat the best mouse+keyboard gurus? I very much doubt that.

Note again that I'm only talking about navigation - when you're actively editing, you're obviously going to lose too much time moving your hand between mouse and keyboard.