An initiative from Adobe to get the new developers in understand the basic principles around developing components in AEM using latest standards. Its high time we moved away from JSP and JSTL. HTL is the new thing in AEM space Make use of this and get yourself to speed with latest best practices
Please start reading this helpx article which is a tutorial for all those who want to learn the latest in AEM Adobe Experience Manager Help | Getting Started with AEM Sites - WKND Tutorial
Also to learn AEM without worrying about Eclipse, Maven, Lazybones, and other tooling - but instead how to build a web site - see . https://helpx.adobe.com/experience-manager/using/first_aem63_website.html