Python works for a large swath of issues, and is much easier to learn. That's the point of it. With Python, you can more easily move from a purely syntactical focus to actually programming.

If you need to go into lower level programming languages in the future, that's cool. You can go deeper into stuff like variable types, constant variables, block scope, garbage collection.. whatever you want. You already have a grasp what a string is, how to use a for loop, etc.

In reading the article, it seems like the author is saying essentially "Programming is supposed to be hard. Python makes it easier. So don't teach Python." But shouldn't we be teaching people the easy stuff first? That way they can get, y'know, programming?

The version split is about the only reasonable argument. And how you teach that is the following: Python 2 and Python 3 are different languages for all intents and purposes. Use Python 3.

But what do I know; I'm just a self-taught coder.