[Brawler]

Python is great and all, but I don't think it would be the BEST first language that a person can learn. I would highly advice either C or C++. Many modern programming languages have a very similar syntax to C, which would make it a breeze to learn langs like Java or PHP. Python, on the other hand, is notorious for it's use of whitespace... making it's syntax less similar to most others. C also provides the most 'rustic' high level programming experience, providing you knowledge of the code that powers your kernel and python interpreter. If it I were to do it all again, I would definitely start with C. Python is still my favorite scripting lang tho

I second Dyme's choice.

I personally started with C/assembly (moving into C++ later) and it was fairly trivial to swap to other languages after learning the basics of these languages. Additionally, the whole compiling and assembly thing gives you some really good insight into how programs actually function at a deep level (Memory allocation, learning wtf the heap is, pushing and popping things from the stack, etc etc).