Everywhere I look, when new programmers ask what language to learn first, they are most often told to learn Python.

C is too low-level, Perl's too old and crufty, Ruby's too trendy, Scheme is too esoteric, Haskell's too difficult, Lua doesn't have enough libraries, Java's too verbose and corporate, ... the list of reasons not to go with other languages is a mile long. Note: PHP is usually never even mentioned.

Then the new programmer asks what language they should use for web programming. At this point, everyone looks at the floor, scratches the back of their neck, clears their throat a bit, and says that, well, you should probably use PHP because that's what everyone else is using.

So, in most corners of the programming world, many experienced programmers are recommending Python.

You know how to get "everyone else" to use Python for web development? You make it easy to deploy -- just like PHP.