In Alacritty, ctrl-l clears the screen but does not clear the scrollback buffer. Clear also clears the scrollback buffer. This is useful for running programs with lots of output containing escape codes that may get mangled by less; just run the program and press shift-home to scroll to the top of the buffer.
I have ctrl+k bound to clear the scrollback buffer in tmux, it's rare I use it but handy.
I've been typing "clear" for so long that it would take longer for me to think to override my muscle memory and use ctrl-l instead, and the time saved isn't enough to bother retraining myself on this.
Also, ctrl-l isn't universal, but "clear" very nearly is.
Out of interest, where doesn't ctrl-l work? I only use Linux these days and readline's ubiquity means it's pretty much everywhere I go.
I was thinking of operating systems I use aside from the Unices or Windows, such as VMS, z/OS, etc. But now that I consider it, I don't know for a fact that Ctrl-l doesn't work with standard terminal programs in other OSes. I just assumed it generally won't. So, grain of salt and all that.
Ah I thought you cleared the screen with cls rather than clear on Windows. Perhaps times have changed.
You're correct. I don't use terminal on windows much, and misremembered.