Comment by SuperNinKenDo

Emacs seems to do a pretty good job handling this with the "Customize" interface. Presents a bunch of variables the user is intended to customise in something resembling a familiar interface, then it inserts the values into the Elisp init file. Someone could use and customise Emacs for years and never really touch Elisp directly. But then, oh, those text fields actually take lists, which in Emacs Lisp is the same as taking code. Maybe you use that for a while until you get comfortable and wanna try modifying something not surfaced in "customize", where you can discover init.el, etc. Etc. It's not perfect, but to me it's really close, it's the model of progression I wish all UIs for customisation used, personally.