The first time I learned programming it was Scheme, and I didn't care for it - the syntax was confusing and it felt more like magical incantations than giving t

The first time I learned programming it was Scheme, and I didn't care for it - the syntax was confusing and it felt more like magical incantations than giving the machine instructions. I didn't touch programming again for several years, but when I did it was python. I found it was much more interesting, in part because of my state of mind but also because I could see the computer responding to what I told it to do and I liked being "in control" of the machine rather than the other way around (which FP can sometimes feel like). I love functional programming now and I write a lot of Haskell, but I think there's real value to starting out with an imperative language to get that "interacting with the machine" feel. It also makes it easier IMO to learn about computational complexity, systems, etc. That, and python has a ton of great libraries, an intuitive syntax, and a lot of flexibility, so I'm not surprised they've adopted it.