> most packages / modules are written for 2 This is actually not so much the case any more; many packages now support Python 3, and Python 2.7 is nearing end-o

> most packages / modules are written for 2 This is actually not so much the case any more; many packages now support Python 3, and Python 2.7 is nearing end-of-life. However, many of the tutorials you will read have probably not updated their statements about Python 2/3 compatibility. Python 2.x was indeed far better as far as library compatibility for quite some time after the (IMHO idiotic) decision not to use the proven Python way to introduce new features (from __future__ import), and instead have the 3.x release break backwards compatibility entirely. My advice is to start with Python 3, then switch to Python 2 if you discover your project requires a specific library that does not yet support Python 3.