Python is a fantastic language for learning algorithms. It's also a good interface for higher performance, lower level systems language libraries. That said,

Python is a fantastic language for learning algorithms. It's also a good interface for higher performance, lower level systems language libraries. That said, it is certainly worth the effort to learn one of those systems level languages to pair with python. I always say that python is like the English of programming languages; it's an amalgamation of other languages, programming paradigms and a rich set of libraries, and often serves as a 'Common Tongue' to glue disparate processes together. There is an inherit risk to that, though. Because it's so easy to transition between object/procedural/functional modes, because it's so easy to tie together so many different interfaces, because it's so easy to `import everything`... it is often too easy to avoid a proper separation of concerns. The flexibility comes with a disincentive towards discipline. All of the pedantry of systems level language performance and practices aside, even the context switch alone between 'algorithm language' and 'application language' is beneficial to promoting better discipline in both areas.