Paul E. Johnson is a member of the Political Science Department at the University of Kansas. As such, he’s not a canonical Emacs user but he has a provacative set of slides that suggests that, in fact, Emacs doesn’t have a steep learning curve. Or, at least, it needn’t have one.
His thesis is that one can use Emacs with more or less “standard” keybindings by using the arrow and other special purpose keys and by turning on CUA mode to make Emacs input more like “modern” apps.
That’s all true, of course, but it strikes me as riding a bicycle with training wheels. Yes, you can ride around and do bicycle-like things but you can’t really call yourself a bicycle rider. Even Johnson recognizes this and notes that you’re going to want to learn at least some of those native Emacs commands.
When I learned to ride a bike, I didn’t use training wheels and I don’t recommend them for new Emacs users either. Sometimes you just need to grasp the nettle and push through the pain. The benefit is that at the other end you can ride a bike or use Emacs well.
Still, Johnson has a point. It’s possible to start using Emacs without having to learn all those bespoke keybindings. The question is whether that’s the best path forward. I think not but obviously others disagree and I’m willing to stipulate that they may be right, at least for some people.