Worst thing about learning Emacs is that newbies follow the wrong path, albeit you can't criticize them for not knowing better. Absolute newbies should start with an Emacs customized to follow common conventions of editors (CUA, etc.); Vi users should start with Viper mode (+ Vimpulse). And so on.
I disagree completely. New users should follow the tutorial. Eventually, to use Emacs as Emacs, you are going to have to understand its model and its terminology. Pretending that doesn't exist until you have learned how to use Emacs as a very bloated Notepad clone will leave you thinking that Emacs is a very bloated Notepad clone.
I learned Emacs when I was in middle school. If I could figure it out then, from the interactive docs, any adult should be able to figure it out. If they don't want to, though, that's a whole other issue entirely, and is not something software can solve. Emacs is different. Learn it or don't.
Now, once you understand Emacs, then sure, use Viper. It's a great tool. But if you don't understand Emacs, then Viper is just going to make you mad. (No experienced Emacs user would use the CUA keybindings, though.)
Come on, Ctrl+ZXCV are so ingrained into the fingers of people who type a lot that having to learn a whole new set of shortcuts does not seem an efficient route. You are not likely to keep them, anyway (since it's way easier to customize Emacs to a common set than other apps). I remember resorting to use my mouse almost always. Nowadays, after having customized Emacs, I'm a keyboard junkie.
