Why is Python a good first scripting language?

[Courageous]

>> (1)  Clean, terse, easy-to-read syntax.  All subjective terms, and everyone
>[snip]
>
>From personal experience, in this regard python is better than anything I've 
>seen in ~12 years of programming with a reasonable set of languages.

Personally, I agree. I'll make one aside. Some folks, mostly ones already
experienced, are alienated by the lack of specific block delimiters (i.e., braces).
This is, in my opinion, an issue of familiarity.
problems, which is a strength and a weakness.
>
>Indeed. Having ditched Perl for python about a year ago, I'd say that in this 
>particular point python shines over perl.

This is at the heart of the historical appeal of python.

C//