Python is an easy-to-learn programming language that has some really useful features for a beginning programmer. The code is quite easy to read when compared to other programming languages, and it has an interactive shell into which you can enter your programs and see them run. In addition to its simple language structure and an interactive shell with which to experiment, Python has some features that greatly augment the learning process and allow you to put together simple animations for creating your own games. One is the turtle module, inspired by Turtle graphics (used by the Logo programming language back in the 1960s) and designed for educational use. Another is the tkinter module, an interface for the Tk GUI toolkit, which provides a simple way to create programs with slightly more advanced graphics and animation.
Programming fosters creativity, reasoning, and problem-solving. The programmer gets the opportunity to create something from nothing, use logic to turn programming constructs into a form that a computer can run, and, when things don’t work quite as well as expected, use problem solving to figure out what has gone wrong. Programming is fun, sometimes challenging (and occasionally frustrating) activity, and the skills learned from it can be useful both in school and at work. Even if your career has nothing to do with computers. And, if nothing else, programming is a great way to spend an afternoon when the weather outside is dreary.