Yes, python is a good language to learn as a starter. Because python does not require you to create classes, etc. so can be less overwhelming for a beginner. The syntax is also much simpler. Python is widely used these days as a web development language, using the framework Django, and also in machine learning with the use of the libraries TensorFlow, Keras, Scikit-learn, NumPy, etc.
Despite python syntaxes are neat there is simple learning curve that everybody who is serious about it can deal with. It seems to be good with mathematical operations. I have come to understand that it responds to datasets very well which makes it very good for AI. I am not a statistician but there is nothing difficult to learn there if you have a high school level maths or beyond. The modules are readily available to be used. So in that case I vouch for Python as one of the good programming languages to learn or recommend for beginner.
I wouldn’t say difficult, but it can take a bit of time to understand gow to deal with csv files properly i.e. pandas library
All learning takes time. Panda as a module is not vast but the syntaxes can be confusing at times when manipulating the dataframe. If care is not taken one can easily mix things up.
Agreed, but my point being that its not something you can adapt from say, SQL as opposed to between web framewoeks. Sure, joins are common but pivot tables are not