[anonporridge]

Python's closeness to pseudocode is one reason why it makes a fantastic choice for whiteboard coding interviews.

I've personally had interviewers frustrated that I solve problems correctly so much faster than they expected. And not only correctly, but to the point where I could type what I wrote verbatim into the interpreter and prove that it actually works.

[bitwize]

Python is pretty much zoomer BASIC. I think it's a pretty good choice for those early painful bits of learning how to program, when you have to understand that a program is sequenced instructions to a computer, that the effect of an instruction depends on what happened before, etc. You can write a complete Python program without defining a class or invoking an object. These concepts can be introduced after the learner has the basics down pat.