

Why beginners should learn Python first. - plantr567
http://slant.co/topics/what-is-the-best-programming-language-to-learn-first/opinions/python

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kyllo
As a programmer who was a beginner not very long ago, I agree that Python is
great for beginners and experts alike. Ruby is another decent candidate, for
mostly the same reasons.

Java and C++, the languages you usually see in university courses and the work
place, are just god-awful for beginners.

When I first started learning programming, I didn't really know what language
I should study, so I flip-flopped between studying Java, C++, Python, and PHP,
and learned them to widely varying degrees of proficiency. Then I picked up
Javascript, then Ruby, then Objective-C, and now I think that's about all the
OO languages I would have any reason to learn, and am now just starting to
dabble in functional programming.

I think the only reason I didn't just stick with Python throughout the
beginner phase, is that I didn't really get what Python was "for." I thought
it was just for desktop scripting. I didn't know about its GUI toolkits, or
that you could write web applications in it. I learned PHP because I could
immediately see the end use of it in my browser, and had no idea I could have
used Python for the same thing.

If I had to do it over, instead of studying such a smattering of languages, I
probably would have started off with a crash-course in C and then quickly
moved on to doing everything in Python (and Javascript).

