[rcthompson]

No one's saying that Python 3 doesn't improve on Python 2 in significant and tangible ways. The key phrase is "If you learn Python 3 then you'll still have to learn Python 2 to get anything done" which is absolutely true in my experience.[1] This is because as soon as you hit a single dependency that doesn't support Python 3, you have to switch to Python 2. And there are still a good number of important modules that are Python 2 only. (And no, reimplementing the functionality of dependency oneself is not an option for a beginning programmer.) And even if all the modules you need right now are available for Python 3, you might find later that the new feature you want to implement in an existing program requires a Python2-only module. No matter how great Python 3 is, and how much we all wish we could switch to it, we can't just will all our dependencies to add support for it.

[1] Obviously your experience may vary depending on which modules are considered essential for your work.