On the other hand, my experience has been very different: I learned Python when 3.2 was current as well, using Lutz' "Learning Python", which takes the approach of "teach Python 3, and explain how 2 is different whenever necessary". I've followed suit and taken the approach of writing Python 3 code first, and to make it work on 2.7 only when I need to, which I found fairly easy to do, though it can make the code a bit uglier sadly (writing cross-version-compatible metaclass code is the one that annoys me, since it adds some verbosity).

I'm looking forward to 2.x dying out to eliminate that retrofitting step (and it's happening: the improving dependency landscape means I find I have to do it less and less often), but I've not experienced any major pain overall. From where I'm sitting, Python 3 is a better, cleaner language, and as someone new to Python, I'm happier for it.