> I don't think Python is a good beginners language anymore with all its complexity

It's not like the simpler parts of the language have gone away in recent versions. You can still program in python like it's 2.7.

Just as you can still program in C++ using C paradigms.

Agreed. C is a great starting point. It's a terrible continuing point though. Novice C programmers write seg-faulty code left and right, which is fine. That's not a problem; everything that's wrong is on the surface. In the mean time, they've learned how to implement a binary search tree or something, which is pretty cool when you do it in C. The intermediate two-star C programmer whose programs almost never segfault, that's the truly dangerous one. Precious few C programmers make it past that stage.

Good points. Though it would be a good debate that Go would be a better beginner language. Java's forcing of class based OOP would cause an avalanche of other kinds of problems that Go and C don't have to deal with.