I assure you that you will pick up the meaning of the symbols more quickly than you imagine. As for typing, there is usually a prefix key (like a leader in vim

I assure you that you will pick up the meaning of the symbols more quickly than you imagine. As for typing, there is usually a prefix key (like a leader in vim) followed by a single character to insert one of the symbols. It might actually be easier than hunting for the curly braces.