I can't say much about Python, but I can vouch for Processing as a beginner's language- I've used it with great success to teach game programming to middle-scho

I can't say much about Python, but I can vouch for Processing as a beginner's language- I've used it with great success to teach game programming to middle-schoolers and high-schoolers. In general Processing does a good job of easing beginners into the important parts of Java- sequential code, procedure definitions and eventually classes- without quite as much boilerplate. After a few days of Processing I usually try to cap things off with writing a command-line application in ordinary Java, and usually the only mysterious thing I have to explain at that point is what the "public" modifier does.