@whirli IMO, it depends.

Python is a good general purpose language; however, you aren't going to get very far trying to write embedded code with it...

From another angle, it's fairly rare that you get to pick the language. Unless you are lucky enough to be senior engineer on a green field project, the language will be chosen for you. It doesn't matter if this is right or wrong, it's reality.

A final matter of note, I don't recommend learning a language, rather learn how to program. If you have a solid grasp on machine architecture, computation, and a couple different programming paradigms (structured, OO, functional) you can program in any language. Syntax isn't programming.